^ 



V 





















* K \> „ if * o , ^ V> . v * , 






c 




><v 



<£ ^ 

# ^ 




% 



^j:^^^--^^^^^ 






\^ 



V ^ 




c , 



^ : 



y ^ 











V 








, <t 










SERMONS 



PREACHED IN BOSTON 



ON THE DEATH OF 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



TOGETHER WITH THE FUNERAL SERVICES IN 

THE EAST ROOM OF THE EXECUTIVE 

MANSION AT WASHINGTON. 



rife 



W 



W£ 



BOSTON: 

J. E. TILTON J^NJD COMPANY. 

1865. 



7 



.8 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, 

BY J. E. TILTON AND CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



Stereotyped Bt C. J. Peters <fc Son, 
No. 13 Washington Street. 



Tress of Geo. C. Rand & Avert. 



t>*° 



CONTENTS. 



FUNERAL SERVICE AT WASHINGTON. 

Page. 
I. BURIAL SERVICE READ BY REV. MR. HALL. 7 

II. OPENING PRAYER BY BISHOP SIMPSON. 9 

III. SERMON BY REV. D. P. GURLEY. ... 16 

IV. CLOSING PRAYER BY REV. E. H. GRAY. 28 



SERMONS IN BOSTON. 

V. REV. E. N. KIRK. 33 

Psalms xlvi. : 10. 
VI. REV. CYRUS A. BARTOL 51 

VII. REV. J. M. MANNING 59 

Deuteronomy xxxiv. : 4, 5. 

VIII. REV. JOHN E. TODD 75 

Psalms xciii. : 1. 
IX. REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. ... 91 

2 Tim. i : 10. 
X. REV. GEORGE II. HEP WORTH. .... 109 

Matthew ix. : 15. 
XL REV. W. R. NICHOLSON. 125 

XII. REV. WILLIAM HAGUE 129 

Samuel iii. : 38. 



CONTENTS. 



XIII. 


REV. 


XIV. 


REV. 


XV. 


REV. 


XVI. 


REV. 


XVII. 


REV. 


XVIII. 


REV. 


XIX. 


REV. 


XX. 


REV. 


XXI. 


REV. 


XXII. 


REV. 


XXIII. 


REV. 


XXIV. 


REV. 


XXV. 


REV. 


XXVI 


REV. 


XXVII. 


REV. 


XXVIII. 


REV. 



E. B. WEBB 145 

Isaiah xxi. : 11, 12. 

R. II. NEALE 163 

MATTnEw ix. : 15. 

HENRY W. FOOTE 179 

F. D. HUNTINGTON. 193 

WARREN H. CUDWORTH. .... 199 

Daniel iv. 35. 
CHANDLER ROBBINS 215 

Psalms lxxvii. : 19. 
W. S, STUDLEY. 227 

Lamentations v. : 15, 16, 17, 19. 

RUFUS ELLIS 235 

Luke xxiv. : 5, 6. 

SAMUEL K. LOTHROP 245 

2 Samuel xix : 2. 

EDWARD E. HALE 267 

1 Corinthians xv. : 57. 

A. A. MINER 279 

Psalms lxxxix. : 18. 

JAMES REED 295 

GEORGE PUTNAM 309 

GEORGE L. CHANEY. 325 

John xiv. : 18. 
A. L. STONE 337 

Lamentations v. : 15, 16. 
J. D. FULTON. 359 

Deuteronomy xxxiv. : 7. 



REV. P. D. GURLEY, D. D 



1* 



.8 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, 

BY J. E. TILTON AND CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



Stereotyped Bt C. J. Peters <fc Son, 
No. 13 Washington Street. 



Tress of Geo. C. Rand & Avert. 



6? 



9 



CONTENTS. 



FUNERAL SERVICE AT WASHINGTON. 

Page. 
I. BURIAL SERVICE READ BY REV. MR. HALL. 7 

II. OPENING PRAYER BY BISHOP SIMPSON. 9 
III. SERMON BY REV. D. P. GURLEY. ... 16 
IV. CLOSING PRAYER BY REV. E. H. GRAY. 28 



SERMONS IN BOSTON. 

V. REV. E. N. KIRK. 33 

Psalms xlvi. : 10. 

VI. REV. CYRUS A. BARTOL 51 

VII. REV. J. M. MANNING 59 

Deuteronomy xxxiv. : 4, 5. 

VIII. REV. JOHN E. TODD 75 

Psalms xciii. : 1. 

IX. REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. ... 91 

2 Tim. i : 10. 

X. REV. GEORGE II. HEP WORTH. . . . . 109 
Matthew ix. : 15. 

XI. REV. W. R. NICHOLSON. 125 

XII. REV. WILLIAM HAGUE 129 

Samuel iii. : 38. 



BURIAL SERVICE 



At ten minutes past 12, Rev. Mr. Hall opened the 
services by reading from the Episcopal burial service 
for the dead as follows : 

" I am the resurrection and the life saith the Lord ; he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die. — John xi : 25, 26. 

" I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall 
stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after 
my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall 
I see God, whom I fchall see for myself, and mine eyes 
shall behold and not another. — Job xix : 25, 26, 27. 

" We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain 
we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave and the Lord 
hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." — 
1 Timothy vi : 7, and Job i: 21. 

"Lord, let me know my end and the number of my 
days, that I may be certified how long I have to live. 
Behold, Thou hast made my days as it were but a span 
long, and mine age is even as nothing in respect of Thee. 
And verily every man living is altogether vanity ; for 

(7) 



8 SERMONS ON THE 

man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself 
in vain. He heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who 
shall gather them. And now, Lord, what is my hope ? 
Truly my hope is ever in Thee ; deliver me from 
all my offences, and make me not a rebuke unto the 
foolish. When Thou, with rebukes dost chasten man 
for sin, Thou makest his beauty to consume away, 
like as it were a moth fretting a garment. Every man 
is, therefore, but vanity. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and 
with Thine ears consider my calling. Hold not Thy 
peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with thee and a 
sojourner, as all my fathers were. O, spare me a little, 
that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be 
no more seen. Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from 
one generation to another. Before the mountains were 
brought forth, or even the earth and the world were made, 
Thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. 
Thou turnest man to destruction ; again thou sayest, come 
again, ye children of men, for a thousand years in thy 
sight are but as yesterday, seeing that it is past as a 
watch in the night. As soon as Thou scatterest them, 
they are even as sheep, and fade away suddenly like the 
grass. In the morning it is green and groweth up, but 
in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered. 
For we consume away in Thy displeasure, and are afraid 
at thy wrathful indignation. Thou hast set our mis- 
deeds before Thee, and our secret sins in the light of Thy 
countenance ; for when thou art angry all our days are 
gone. We bring our years to an end, as it were a tale 
that is told. The days of our age are threescore years 
and ten, and though men be so strong that they come to 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 9 

fourscore years, yet is their strength then but labor and 
sorrow, so soon passeth it away, and we are gone. So 
teach us to numbe* our days that we may apply our 
hearts unto wisdom. Glory be to the Father,and to the 
Son, and to the holy Ghost ; as it was in the beginning, 
is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." 

Then was read the lesson from the 15th chapter 
of St. Paul to the Corinthians, beginning with the 
20th verse : 

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become 
the first-fruits of them that slept. 

For since by man came death, by man came also the 
resurrection of the dead. 

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be 
made alive. 

But every man in his own order : Christ the first- 
fruits ; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 

Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered 
up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he shall 
have put down all rule, and all authority, and power. 

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under 
his feet. 

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 

For he hath put all things under his feet. But when 
he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that 
he is excepted which did put all things under him. 

And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then 
shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put 
all things under him, that God may be all in all. 



10 SERMONS ON THE 

Else what shall they do, which are baptized for the 
dead, if the dead rise not at all ? why are they then 
baptized for the dead ? 

And why stand we in jeopardy every hour ? 
I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ 
Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 

If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts 
at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise 
not ? let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die. 

Be not deceived ; evil communications corrupt good 
manners. 

Awake to righteousness, and sin not ; for some have 
not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. 
But some man will say, How are the dead raised up ? 
and with what body do they come ? 

Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened 
except it die : 

And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that 
body that shall be, but bare grain ; it may chance of 
wheat, or of sdnie other grain : 

But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and 
to every seed his own body. 

All flesh is not the same flesh ; but there is one kind 
of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of 
fishes, and another of birds. 

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial : 
but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the 
terrestrial is another. 

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of 
the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star 
differeth from another star in glory. 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 11 

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in 
corruption, it is raised in incorruption : 

It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory : it is sown 
in weakness, it is raised in power : 

It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a 
living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 

Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but 
that which is natural ; and afterward that which is 
spiritual. 

The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man 
is the Lord from heaven. 

As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : 
and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are 
heavenly. 

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption 
inherit incorruption. 

Behold, I shew you a mystery : We shall not all 
sleep, but we shall all be changed, 

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall 
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and 
this mortal must put on immortality. 

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup- 
tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then 
shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
Death is swallowed up in victory. 



12 SERMONS ON THE 

O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy 
victory ? 

The sting of death is sin ; and the strength of sin is 
the law. 

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, 
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, 
forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in 
the Lord. 



Bishop Simpson, of Philadelphia, then offered the 
following opening prayer : 

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, as with smitten 
and suffering hearts we come into Thy presence, we 
pray, in the name of our blessed Redeemer, that Thou 
wouldst pour upon us Thy Holy Spirit, that all our 
thoughts and acts may be acceptable in Thy sight. We 
adore Thee for all Thy glorious perfections. We praise 
Thee for the revelation which Thou hast given us in Thy 
works and in Thy Word. By Thee all worlds exist. 
All beings live through Thee. Thou raisest up king- 
doms and empires, and castest them down. By Thee 
kings reign and princes decree righteousness. In Thy 
hand are the issues of life and death. We confess 
before Thee the magnitude of our sins and transgres- 
sions, both as individuals and as a nation. We implore 
Thy mercy for the sake of our Redeemer. Forgive 
us all our iniquities. If it please Thee, remove Thy 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 13 

chastening hand from us ; and, though we be 
unworthy, turn away from us Thine anger, and let the 
light of Thy countenance again shine upon us. 

At this solemn hour, as we mourn for the death of 
our President, who was stricken down by the hand of an 
assassin, grant us also the grace to bow in submission 
to Thy holy will. Slay we recognize Thy hand high 
above all human agencies, and Thy power as controlling 
all events, so that the wrath of man shall praise Thee, 
and that the remainder of wrath Thou wilt restrain. 
Humbled under the suffering we have endured, and the 
great afflictions through which we have passed, may we 
not be called upon to offer other sacrifices. May the 
lives of all our officers, both civil and military, be 
guarded by Thee ; and let no violent hand fall upon any 
of them. Mourning as we do, for the mighty dead by 
whose remains we stand, we would yet lift our hearts 
unto Thee in grateful acknowledgment for Thy kindness 
in giving us so great and noble a commander. 

Thou art glorified in good men, and we praise Thee 
that Thou didst give him unto us so pure, so honest, so 
sincere, and so transparent in character. We praise 
Thee for that kind, affectionate heart, which always 
swelled with feelings of enlarged benevolence. We 
bless Thee for what Thou didst enable him to do ; that 
Thou didst give him wisdom to select for his advisers, 
and for his officers, military and naval, those men 
through whom our country has been carried through 
an unprecedented conflict. 

We bless Thee for the success which has attended 
all their efforts, and victories which have crowned our 
2 



11 SERMONS ON THE 

armies ; and that Thou didst spare Thy servant until he 
could behold the dawning of that glorious morning of 
peace and prosperity which is about to shine upon our 
land ; that he was enabled to go up as Thy servant of 
old upon Mount Pisgah, and catch a glimpse of the 
promised land. Though his lips are silent and his arm 
is powerless, we thank Thee that Thou didst strengthen 
him to speak words that cheer the hearts of the suffering 
and the oppressed, and to write that declaration of eman- 
cipation which has given him an immortal reward ; that 
though the hand of the assassin has struck him to the 
ground, it could not destroy the work which he has 
done, nor forge again the chains which he has broken. 
And while we mourn that he has passed away, we are 
grateful that his work was so fully accomplished, and 
that the acts which he has performed will forever remain. 

We implore Thy blessing upon his bereaved family, 
Thou husband of the widow. Bless her who, broken- 
hearted and sorrowing, feels oppressed with unutterable 
anguish. Cheer the loneliness of the pathway which 
lies before her, and grant to her such consolations of 
Thy spirit, and such hopes, through the resurrection, 
that she shall feel that " Earth hath no sorrows which 
Heaven cannot heal." 

Let Thy blessing rest upon his sons ; pour upon 
them the spirit of wisdom ; be Thou the guide of their 
youth ; prepare them for usefulness in society, for hap- 
piness in all their relations. May the remembrance of 
their father's counsels, and their father's noble acts, 
ever stimulate them to glorious deeds, and at last may 
they be heirs of everlasting life. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 15 

Command thy rich blessings to descend upon the suc- 
cessor of our lamented President. Grant unto him 
wisdom, energy, and firmness for the responsible duties 
to which he has been called ; and may he, his cabinet, 
officers and generals who shall lead his armies, and the 
brave soldiers in the field, be so guided by Thy counsels 
that they shall speedily complete the great work which 
he had so successfully carried forward. 

Let Thy blessing rest upon our country. Grant unto 
us all a fixed and strong determination never to cease 
our efforts until our glorious Union shall be fully 
re-established. 

Around the remains of our loved President may we 
covenant together by every possible means to give our- 
selves to our country's service until every vestige of this 
rebellion shall have been wiped out, and until slavery, 
its cause, shall be forever eradicated. 

Preserve us, we pray Thee, from all complications 
with foreign nations. Give us hearts to act justly 
toward all nations, and grant unto them hearts to act 
justly toward us, that universal peace and happiness may 
fill our earth. We rejoice, then, in this inflicting dis- 
pensation Thou hast given, as additional evidence of the 
strength of our nation. We bless Thee that no tumult 
has arisen, and in peace and harmony our government 
moves onward ; and that Thou hast shown that our re- 
publican government is the strongest upon the face of 
the earth. 

In this solemn presence, may we feel that we too are 
immortal ! May the sense of our responsibility to God 
rest upon us ; may we repent of every sin ; and may we 



16 SERMONS ON THE 

consecrate anew unto Thee all the time and all the 
talents which Thou hast given us ; and may we so fulfil 
our allotted duties that finally we may have a resting- 
place with the good, and wise, and the great, who now 
surround that glorious throne ! Hear us while we unite 
in praying with Thy Church in all lands and in all ages, 
even as Thou hast taught us, saying : 

Oil Father which art in heaven; hallowed be Thy 
name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth 
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those 
who trespass against us. And lead us not into tempta- 
tion, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, 
and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen ! 



DR. GURLEY'S SERMON. 

As we stand here to-day, mourners around this coffin, 
and around the lifeless remains of our beloved chief 
magistrate, we recognize and we adore the sovereignty 
of God. His throne is in the Heavens, and His king- 
dom ruleth over all. He hath done, and He hath 
permitted to be done, whatsoever he pleased. Clouds 
and darkness are round about him; righteousness and 
judgment are the habitation of his throne. His way is 
in the sea and his path in the great waters, and his foot- 
steps are not known. Canst thou by searching find out 
God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? 
It is as high as Heaven, what canst thou do ? Deeper 
than hell, what canst thou know ? The measure thereof 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 17 

is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. If 
He cut off and shut up, or gather together, then who 
can hinder him ? for He knoweth vain men, He seeth 
wickedness : also, will he not then consider it ? We 
bow before His Infinite Majesty, — we bow, we weep, 
we worship. 

" Where reason fails with all her powers, 
There faith prevails and love adores." 

It was a cruel, cruel hand, that dark hand of the assas- 
sin, which smote our honored, wise, and noble President, 
and filled the land with sorrow. But above and beyond 
that hand there is another, which we must see and 
acknowledge. It is the chastening hand of a wise and 
a faithful Father. He gives us this bitter cup, and the 
cup that our father has given us shall we not drink it ? 

God of the just, thou givest us the cup, 
We yield to thy behest, and drink it up. 

Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. Oh, how these 
blessed words have cheered and strengthened and sus- 
tained us through all these long and weary years of civil 
strife, while our friends and brothers on so many ensan- 
guined fields were falling and dying for the cause of 
liberty and union. Let them cheer and strengthen and 
sustain us to-day. True, this new sorrow and chastening 
has come in such an hour and in such a way as we 
thought not, and it bears the impress of a rod that is very 
heavy, and of a mystery that is very deep, that such a 
life should be sacrificed at such a time, by such a foul 
and diabolical agency ; that the man at the head of the 
2* 



18 SERMONS ON THE 

nation, whom the people had learned to trust with a con- 
fiding and a loving confidence, and upon whom more than 
upon any other were centred, under God, our best hopes 
for the true and speedy pacification of the country, the 
restoration of the Union, and the return of harmony 
and love, — that he should be taken from us, and 
taken just as the prospect of peace was brightly opening 
upon our torn and bleeding country, and just as he was 
beginning to be animated and gladdened with the hope 
of ere long enjoying with the people the blessed fruit 
and reward of his and their toils, care and patience and 
self-sacrificing devotion to the interests of liberty and 
the Union. Oh, it is a mysterious and a most afflicting 
visitation. But it is our Father in Heaven, the God of 
our fathers and our God, who permits us to be so 
suddenly and sorely smitten ; and we know that His 
judgments are right, and that in faithfulness He has 
afflicted us. In the midst of our rejoicings we needed 
this stroke, this dealing, this discipline and therefore 
He has sent it. Let us remember our affliction has not 
come forth of the dust, and our trouble has not sprung 
out of the ground. 

Through and beyond all second causes, let us look and 
see the sovereign permissive agency of the great First 
Cause. It is his prerogative to bring light out of darkness, 
and good out of evil. Surely the wrath of man shall praise 
him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain. In 
the light of a clearer day, we may yet see that the 
wrath which planned and perpetrated the death of the 
President was overruled by Him, whose judgments are 
unsearchable and His ways past finding out, for the 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 19 

highest welfare of all those interests which are so dear 
to the Christian patriot and philanthropist, and for 
which a loyal people have made such an unexampled 
sacrifice of treasure and of blood. Let us not be faith- 
less, but believing. 

" Blind unbelief is prone to err, and scan His work in vain ; 
God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain." 

We will wait for his interpretation ; and we will wait in 
faith, nothing doubting. He who has led us so well, 
and defended and prospered us so wonderfully during 
the last four years of toil and struggle and sorrow, 
will not forsake us now. He may chasten, but he will 
not destroy. He may purify us more and more in the 
furnace of trial, but he will not consume us. No, no. 
He has chosen us, as he did his people of old, in the 
furnace of affliction ; and he has said of us, as he said 
of them, this people have I formed for myself; they 
shall show forth my praise. Let our principal anxiety 
now be that this new sorrow may be a sanctified sorrow ; 
that it may lead us to deeper repentance, to • a more 
humbling sense of our dependence upon God, and to 
the more unreserved consecration of ourselves, and all 
that we have, to the cause of truth and justice, of law 
and order, of liberty and good government, of pure and 
undefiled religion. Then, though weeping may endure 
for a night, joy will come in the morning. Blessed be 
God. Despite of this great and sudden and temporary 
darkness, the morning has begun to dawn, the morning 
of a bright and glorious day, such as our country has 
never seen. That day will come and not tarry, and the 



20 SERMONS ON THE 

death of a hundred presidents and their cabinets can 
never, never prevent it. While we are thus hopeful, 
however, let us also be humble. The occasion calls us 
to prayerful and tearful humiliation. It demands of us 
that we lie low, very low, before Him who has smitten 
us for our sins. Oh that all our rulers and all our people 
may bow in the dust to-day beneath the chastening hand 
of God, and may their voices go up to him as one voice, 
and their hearts go up to him as one heart, pleading 
with him for mercy, for grace to sanctify our great and 
sore bereavement, and for wisdom to guide us in this 
our time of need ! Such a united cry and pleading will 
not be in vain. It will enter into the ear and heart of 
Him who sits upon the throne, and He will say to us, 
as to his ancient Israel, "In a little wrath, I hid my 
face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kind- 
ness will I have mercy upon thee, saith the Lord, thy 
Redeemer." 

I have said, that the people confided in the late lament- 
ed President with a full and a loving confidence. Pro- 
bably no man since the days of Washington was ever so 
deeply and firmly imbedded and enshrined in the very 
hearts of the people as Abraham Lincoln Nor was it a 
mistaken confidence and love. He deserved it ; deserved 
it well ; deserved it all. He merited it by his character, 
by his acts, and by the whole tenor and tone and spirit of 
his life. He was simple and sincere, plain and honest, 
truthful and just, benevolent and kind. His perceptions 
were quick and clear, his judgments were calm and 
accurate, and his purposes were good and pure beyond 
a question. Always and everywhere he aimed and 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 21 

endeavored to be right and to do right. His integrity 
was thorough, all-pervading, all-controlling, and incor- 
ruptible. It was the same in every place and relation, 
in the consideration and control of matters great or small, 
the same firm and steady principle of power and beauty, 
that shed a clear and crowning lustre upon all his other 
excellences of mind and heart, and recommended him to 
his fellow-citizens as the man, who, in a time of unexam- 
pled peril, when the very life of the nation was at stake, 
should be chosen to occupy in the country, and for the 
country, its highest post of power and responsibility. 
How wisely and well, how purely and faithfully, how 
firmly and steadily, how justly and successfully he did 
occupy that post, and meet its grave demands, in circum- 
stances of surpassing trial and difficulty, is known to 
you all, — known to the country and the world ; he 
comprehended from the first the perils to which treason 
had exposed the freest and best government on the earth, 
— the vast interests of liberty and humanity that were to be 
saved or lost forever in the urgent impending conflict. He 
rose to the dignity and momentousness of the occasion, 
saw his duty as the Chief Magistrate of a great and 
imperilled people, and he determined to do his duty, and 
his whole duty, seeking the guidance and leaning upon 
the arm of Him of whom it is written, " He giveth 
power to the faint, and to them that have no might He 
increaseth the strength." Yes, he leaned upon his arm. 
He recognized and received the truth, that the kingdom 
is the Lord's and He is the governor among the nations. 
He remembered that God is in history, and he felt that 
nowhere had his hand and his mercy been so marvel- 



22 SERMONS ON THE 

lously conspicuous as in the history of this nation. He 
hoped and he prayed that that same hand would continue 
to guide us, and that same mercy continue to abound to 
us in the time of our greatest need. I speak what I 
know, and testify what I have often heard him say, when 
I affirm that that guidance and mercy were the props on 
which he humbly and habitually leaned; that they 
were the best hope he had for himself, and for his coun- 
try. Hence, when he was leaving his home in Illinois, 
and coming to this city to take his seat in the Executive 
Chair of a disturbed and troubled nation, he said to the 
old and tried friends who gathered tearfully around him, 
and bade him farewell, I leave you with this request, — 
pray for me. They did pray for him, and millions of 
others prayed for him. Nor did they pray in vain. 
Their prayers were heard, and the answer appears in all 
his subsequent history. It shines forth with a heavenly 
radiance in the whole course and tenor of his administra- 
tion, from its commencement to its close. 

God raised him up for a great and glorious mission, 
furnished him for his work, and aided him in its accom- 
plishment. Nor was it merely by strength of mind, and 
honesty of heart, and purity and pertinacity of purpose, 
that He furnished him. In addition to these things, He 
gave him a calm and abiding confidence in the overrul- 
ing providence of God, and in the ultimate triumph of 
truth and righteousness, through the power and the 
blessing of God. This confidence strengthened him in 
all his hours of anxiety and toil, and inspired him with 
calm and cheering hope, when others were inclining to 
despondency and gloom. Never shall I forget the em- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 23 

phasis and the deep emotion with which he said, in this 
very room, to a company of clergymen and others, who 
called to pay him their respects in the darkest day of 
our civil conflict : " Gentlemen, my hope of success, in 
this great and terrible struggle, rests on that immuta- 
ble foundation, the justice and goodness of God ; and, 
when events are very threatening, and prospects very 
dark, I still hope, that in some way which man cannot 
see, all will be well in the end, because our cause is 
just, and God is on our side." Such was his sublime 
and holy faith ; and it was an anchor to his soul, both 
sure and steadfast. It made him firm and strong. It 
emboldened him in the pathway of duty, however 
rugged and perilous it might be. It made him valiant 
for the right, for the cause of God and humanity ; and 
it held him in steady, patient, and unswerving adher- 
ence to a policy of administration which he thought, 
and which we all now think, both God and humanity 
required him to adopt. We admired and loved him on 
many accounts ; for strong and various reasons. We 
admired his childlike simplicity ; his freedom from guile 
and deceit ; his stanch and sterling integrity ; his kind 
and forgiving temper ; his industry and patience ; his 
persistent, self-sacrificing devotion to all the duties of 
his eminent position, from the least to the greatest ; his 
readiness to hear and consider the cause of the poor and 
humble, the suffering and the oppressed ; his charity for 
those who questioned the correctness of his opinions and 
the wisdom of his policy ; his wonderful skill in recon- 
ciling differences among the friends of the Union, lead- 
ing them away from abstractions and inducing them to 



24 SERMONS ON THE 

work together and harmoniously for the common weal ; 
his true and enlarged philanthropy, that knew no dis- 
tinction of color or race, but regarded all men as 
brethren, and endowed alike by their Creator with certain 
inalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness ; his inflexible purpose, that 
what freedom had gained in our terrible civil strife 
should never be lost, and that the end of the war 
should be the end of slavery, and as a consequence 
of rebellion ; his readiness to spend and be spent 
for the attainment of such a triumph, a triumph, the 
blessed fruits of which shall be as wide-spreading 
as the earth, and as enduring as the sun. All these 
things commanded and fixed our admiration, and the 
admiration of the world, and stamped upon his charac- 
ter and life the unmistakable impress of greatness. But 
more sublime than any or all of these, more holy and 
influential, more beautiful and strong and sustaining, 
was his abiding confidence in God, and in the final tri- 
umph of truth and righteousness, through him, and for 
his sake. This was his noblest virtue, his grandest 
principle ; the secret, alike of his strength, his patience, 
and his success. This, it seems to me, after being near 
him steadily, and with him often, for more than four 
years, is the principle by which, more than by any 
other, he being dead yet speaketh. Yes, by his steady, 
enduring confidence in God, and in the complete, ulti- 
mate success of the cause of God, which is the cause of 
humanity, more than in any other way, does he now 
speak to us, and to the nation he loved and served so 
well. By this he speaks to his successor in office, and 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 25 

charges him to have faith in God. By this he speaks to 
the members of his Cabinet, the men with whom he 
counselled so often, and associated with so long, and he 
charges them to have faith in God. By this he sjDeaks 
to all who occupy positions of influence and authority 
in these sad and troublous times, and he charges them 
all to have faith in God. By this he speaks to this 
great people, as they sit in sackcloth to-day, and weep 
for him with a bitter wailing, and refuse to be com- 
forted, and he charges them to have faith in God ; and 
by this he will speak through the ages, and to all rulers 
and peoples in every land, and his message to them will 
be, Cling to liberty and right, battle for them, bleed for 
them, die for them if need be, and have confidence in 
God. Oh that the voice of this testimony may sink 
down into our hearts to-day, and every day, and into the 
heart of the nation, and exert its appropriate influence 
upon our feelings, our faith, our patience, and our devo- 
tion to the cause, now dearer to us than ever before, 
because consecrated by the blood of its most con- 
spicuous defender, its wisest and most fondly trusted 
friend ! 

He is dead. But the God in whom he trusted lives, — 
and he can guide and strengthen his successor as he 
guided and strengthened him. He is dead. But the 
memory of his virtues, of his wise and patriotic counsels 
and labors, of his calm and steady faith in God, lives as 
precious, and will be a power for good in the country 
quite down to the end of time. He is dead. But the 
cause he so ardently loved, so ably, patiently, faithfully 
represented and defended, not for himself only, not for us 
3 



26 SERMONS ON THE 

only, but for all people, in all their coming generations 
till time shall be no more, — that cause survives his fall, 
and will survive it. The light of its brightening pros- 
pects flashes cheeringly to-day athwart the gloom occa- 
sioned by his death, and the language of God's united 
providences is telling us, that, though the friends of lib- 
erty die, liberty itself is immortal. There is no assassin 
strong enough and no weapon deadly enough to quench 
its inextinguishable life or arrest its onward march to the 
conquest and empire of the world. This is our confidence 
and this is our consolation as we weep and mourn to-day: 
Though our beloved President is slain, our beloved Coun- 
try ic* saved ; and so we sing of mercy as well as of judg- 
ment. Tears of gratitude mingle with those of sorrow. 
While there is darkness, there is also the dawning of a 
brighter, happier day upon our stricken and weary land. 
God be praised that our fallen chief lived long, enough to 
see the day dawn, and the day star of joy and peace arise 
upon the nation. He saw it, and he was glad. Alas ! alas ! 
He only saw the dawn. When the sun has risen full-orbed 
and glorious, and a happy re-united people are rejoicing 
in its light, it will shine upon his grave, but that grave 
will be a precious and a consecrated spot. The friends 
of Liberty and of the Union jvill repair to it in years 
and ages to come, to pronounce the memory of its 
occupant blessed, and gathering from his very ashes, 
and from the rehearsal of his deeds and virtues, fresh 
incentives to patriotism, they will there renew their 
vows of fidelity to their country and their God. 

And now I know not that I can more appropriately 
conclude this discourse, which is but a sincere and 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 27 

simple utterance of the heart, than by addressing to our 
departed President, with some slight modification, the 
language which Tacitus, in his life of Agricola, addresses 
to his venerable and departed father-in-law. "With you 
we may now congratulate. You are blessed not only 
because your life was a career of glory ; but because 
you were released, when, your country safe, it was 
happiness to die. We have lost a parent ; and, in our 
distress, it is now an addition to our heartfelt sorrow that 
we had it not in our power to commune with you on the 
bed of languishing, and receive your last embrace. Your 
dying words would have been ever dear to us. Your 
commands we should have treasured up, and graved 
them on our hearts. This sad comfort we have lost, and 
the wound, for that reason, pierces deeper. From the 
world of spirits behold your disconsolate family and 
people. Exalt our minds from fond regret and unavailing 
grief to the contemplation of your virtues. Those we 
must not lament. It were impiety to sully them with a 
tear. To cherish their memory, to embalm them with 
our praises, and so far as we can to emulate your bright 
example, will be the truest mark of our respect, the best 
tribute we can offer. Your wife will thus preserve the 
memory of the best of husbands ; and thus your children 
will prove their filial piety. By dwelling constantly on 
your words and actions, they will have an illustrious 
character before their eyes ; and, not content with the 
bare image of your mortal frame, they will have what is 
more valuable, — the form and features of your mind. 
Busts and statues, like their originals, are frail and 
perishable. The soul is formed of finer elements, and 



28 SERMONS ON THE 

its inward form is not to be expressed by the hand of 
an artist. With unconscious matter our manners and 
our morals may, in some degree, trace the resemblance. 
All of you that gained our love and raised our admi- 
ration still subsist, and will ever subsist, preserved in 
the minds of men, the register of ages and the records 
of fame. Others, who have figured on the stage of life, 
and were the worthies of a former day, will sink for want 
of a faithful historian into the common lot of oblivion, 
inglorious and unremembered. But you, our lamented 
friend and head, delineated with truth, and fairly con- 
signed to posterity, will survive yourself, and triumph 
over the injuries of time. 

PRAYER. 

The Rev. E. H, Gray, D. D., of the E St. Baptist 
Church, closed the solemn services with prayer, as 
follows : 

God of the bereaved, comfort and sustain this mourn- 
ing family. Bless the new Chief Magistrate. Let the 
mantle of his predecessor fall upon him. Bless the 
Secretary of State and his family. O God, if possible, 
according to Thy will, spare their lives that they may 
render still important service to the country. Bless all 
the members of the Cabinet. Endow them with wisdom 
from above Bless the commanders in oar Army and 
Navy, and all the brave defenders of the country. Give 
them continued success. Bless the Embassadors from 
foreign courts, and give us peace with the nations of the 
earth. O God, let treason, that has deluged our land 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 29 

with blood, and desolated our country, and bereaved our 
homes, and filled them with widows and orphans, which 
has at length culminated in the assassination of the 
nation's chosen ruler, — God of justice, and Avenger of 
the nation's wrong, let the work of treason cease, and let 
the guilty perpetrators of this horrible crime be arrested, 
and brought to justice ! O hear the cry and the prayer 
and the wail rising from the nation's smitten and crushed 
heart, and deliver us from the power of our enemy, and 
send speedy peace into all our borders. Through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. 



3* 



REV. E. N. KIRK. 



PSALMS XLVI. 10 



Be still, and know that I am God. 



On Sunday, the 2d instant, our army was exultingly 
chasing the main army of the rebels from Richmond. 
On Sunday, the 9th, the Commander-in-chief of the rebel- 
lious forces capitulated to General Grant. On Sunday, 
the 16th, the voice of song has died in our streets. The 
triumphant banner of the Republic wears the weeds of 
widowhood. A word can start the tear in every eye. 
Arrangements for rejoicing are suspended. A nation is 
making preparations for a funeral ; the greatest funeral 
but one it ever attended; yes, the greatest: for, the 
people never buried such a President at such a time, — a 
murdered President. 

Which way shall we look ? what shall we do ? What 
becomes a people so afflicted, — - so great a nation under 
so great a calamity ? If we should catch and execute a 
thousand vile assassins, or their viler employers, would 
it bring back our lost ? would it place our practised 
pilot at the helm again ? Where are we ? We had 

(33) 



34 SERMONS ON THE 

fondly hoped the experience of four such years as we 
have passed would give us guaranty for the four years to 
come. 

But our hopes are blighted, our plans are frustrated 
We are stunned by the suddenness of the blow; con- 
founded by the awful wickedness of the deed. Murder 
is abroad ; murder, that seeks the highest mark ; that 
dashes down one of the noblest of our race ; that blots 
out the brightest star in our heavens ; that strikes at the 
wisest, kindest, gentlest of us all ; that strikes at the life 
of the nation in the man to whom the nation has 
intrusted that life. 

We are sad, — - we are sick at heart. We feel as if 
our globe had lost its course, and were drifting down 
toward the Botany Bay of the Universe. The reign of 
Justice, of Law, of Order, seems to be past. 

We seem to be struggling like drowning men, — the 
black, chill waters are blinding our eyes, stiffening our 
limbs, stifling our breath. 

What shall we do ? Shall we fill the air with our 
clamors ? Shall we put forth our strength in some mighty 
deeds of vengeance ? 

What is the work and duty of the hour, — of this 
holy Sabbath ? 

Thanks be to God ! a voice sounds from behind the 
black cloud ; a voice from the upper throne ; a voice 
from the world where no assassin lifts his hand ; where 
treason and murder never are known. " Be still, and 
know that I am God." That is just what our oppressed, 
aching hearts rejoice to hear. It is, in the Psalm, as 
really addressed to our enemies in their vain exultations, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 35 

as to us in our sorrow. But we need now to hear it for 
ourselves. 

This, fellow-citizens, is the great lesson of the day in 
which we live ; of the horrid tragedy that makes a 
nation mourn ; of the whole bloody plot of which this 
is the culmination. What is the lesson ? 

I. Suppress or modify all natural impulses by the 
controlling power of religious feeling. 

1. Distress must not be allowed complete control. — 
Nature quivers in agony under such a blow. Who is 
this thus brutally murdered ? The man who had won 
our love and gratitude beyond any of the living. Around 
him, the tenderest cords of our hearts were bound. We 
had placed in his hands the most sacred of earthly trusts. 
He had \e& us so wisely, so firmly, so kindly, through 
such a wilderness, and brought us out as God's minister 
into so large a place and so great a deliverance. We 
had seen in him so much of magnanimity, of sound 
judgment, of gentle kindness, of robust manliness, of 
tender sympathy, of lofty principle, we could not but 
love him, strongly, tenderly. We have slept securely, 
we have dismissed anxiety and fear, because our father 
was at the helm. But he is gone, — dead ; murdered ; 
basely assassinated ; with no last words, no time to tell 
us where his hope was anchored, and whither he was 
going. 

Our hearts are weary with the dull pain of repeating 
to ourselves — he is gone, gone from us forever. 

Hark, suffering hearts ! a voice from the upper world, — 



36 SERMONS ON THE 

"Be still, and know that lam God. If Abraham 
Lincoln is dead, I live. If you loved him, love me, and 
trust him in my hands. Mourn for yourselves, but 
rejoice for him. His work was finished, nobly finished. 
And I have removed him from the turmoil and confusion 
of earth to the peace and rest of heaven." 

2. We are liable to indulge in murmur ings. Why 
should such wickedness be permitted to break in upon 
the order of society ? Why should a wretch like the 
leader of this rebellion be endowed with such executive 
power and the ability to employ, directly or indirectly, 
the black-hearted assassin to invade so noble a life, and 
rob a nation of its polar star ? "Be still, and know 
that I am God. Suppress all murmurs. Suffer, 
weep, but do not murmur. Clouds and darkness are 
round about him, but justice and judgment are the 
pillars of his throne. My thoughts are not your 
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. For, as the 
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways 
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your 
thoughts." Wisdom, rectitude, power, is the trinity 
of attributes on that eternal throne which presides over 
all human affairs. We not only should not complain of 
the divine government, we should cheerfully acquiesce 
in its decrees, and in its permissions ; for it gives the 
Devil the length of his chain, and makes him, in doing 
his own work, accomplish the purposes that infinite 
wisdom and love had formed. 

You remember that Job anticipated the very features 
of the divine government to perplex himself, that now 
perplex us. And you remember God's method of reply. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 37 

It was essentially just this, — Be still, and know that I 
am God. " Who is this that darkeneth counsel bywords 
without knowledge ? Gird up now thy loins like a man ; 
for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where 
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
Declare, if thou hast understanding." If God walks on 
the waves of the sea, only faith can follow him there. 
Murmuring unbelief must remain on the solid shore, and 
lose sight of his footsteps. Faith alone can walk on 
waves, and sing amid the tempest, " In God is my 
salvation." 

Look, for instance, at this fact. He informs us in his 
word that he chastens us for our good, though we cannot 
always see how the end is secured. Faith believes his 
statements and assurances. Sometimes it is obvious that 
his chastisements are directed expressly to removing 
that master-passion, the pride of our hearts. 

If you are conversant with the history of Israel, you 
will have discovered that a very prominent aim of the 
Divine Providence is, to abase the pride of man. Man 
has an utterly false standard, which teaches him to 
admire most of the forms of pride in others, and all in 
himself. Just study that history with this clew in your 
hand ; God's providence is rebuking the pride of men's 
hearts. That is what he is doing to-day among us. We 
had doubted Mr. Lincoln's ability at first. But now we 
have proved it, and trusted him. We placed him the 
second time at the head of our affairs, with the most 
unreserved confidence, and a fulness of joy and thankful- 
ness to God. We felt secure when the decision was 
announced that he was re-elected. We were sure of four 
4 



38 SERMONS ON THE 

years of wise administration, of integrity at the core of 
the government. But there was one thing we did not 
make sufficiently prominent ; the uncertainty of human 
life. We forgot every morning when we arose that 
Abraham Lincoln's breath was in his nostrils. We forgot 
that his own clemency was harboring the villains that 
were plotting his destruction. But this was all virtually 
written in God's word ; and we should have retained an 
humbler spirit had we kept that word in more vivid 
remembrance. It bade us not to put our trust in an arm 
of flesh, because, however strong to-day, to-morrow it 
may be crumbling back to dust. It bade us not to put 
our trust in man, for he is " crushed before the moth." 
A pistol-ball closes his history, annihilates his strength, 
turns him to dust. We were bidden not to put our trust 
in princes, for their breath is in their nostrils. Abraham 
was a prince, and we were proud of him, — so proud 
that we hid God behind him. And now we hear a voice 
in providence, echoing the voice in Scripture, Be still, 
proud heart, and know that I am God. Boast no more 
of thy strength, of thy generals, of thy brave defenders, 
of thy magnanimous leader ; but " he that boasteth, 
let him boast in the Lord." This terrible event pro- 
claims, Man is frail, God is eternal. There is another 
natural feeling now called into active exercise, but 
which we must attemper by the power of a higher 
religious sentiment. 

3. Revenge is in man a perverted instinct, but as 
really an instinct as the love of life. It was placed in 
man as the sting was given to the bee, to resist aggres- 
sion from superior force. But it has now become so 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 39 

mingled with our selfishness, and so perverted we cannot 
properly exercise it at all in personal matters, and scarcely 
in public affairs. But it is impossible to look on a 
dastardly oppressor or an act of cruelty, on any wrong 
to another, without feeling an intense desire to make the 
wrongdoer surfer. 

How intensely this feeling is working to-day in the 
length and breadth of this outraged country ! But to 
that feeling to-day a voice from heaven speaks, — "Be 
still, and know that I am God. Vengeance belongeth 
to me, I will repay, saith the Lord." We have a duty 
to perform ; a solemn duty, a stern .duty. We are deal- 
ing with men who wear much of the image of their 
father, who was a liar, and a traitor, and a rebel, and a 
secessionist, and a murderer, from the beginning. The 
magistrate must deal with them by the stern decrees of 
law and justice, the soldier by the sterner decrees of 
military usage ; but we, as men, as citizens, have no 
personal or party revenge to gratify. All we have to do 
in this matter is this ; that as we are citizens of a re- 
public, and the magistrate must be guided by two codes, 
the statutes, and the public sentiment that sustains or 
modifies them, we must form a correct public sentiment, 
which is with us the backbone of law. Let traitors 
carry personal revenge into their treatment of us. We 
must let our revenge hear that voice, — Be still, and 
know that I am God. 

Another sentiment is outraged by recent events. 

4. Justice. The outbreak was a high-handed act of 
injustice. The robbery committed on the government, 
the robbery not only of forts, and ships, and arms, but 



40 SERMONS ON THE 

of the territory purchased by our common treasury, and 
of the men the government had trained to the art of 
war at its own expense ; the enlistment of the selfish- 
ness of foreign nations against us ; the treatment of our 
brave soldiers, when made prisoners of war ; the treat- 
ment of men who retained among them loyalty and 
allegiance to the government that had always blessed 
them, — all arouse the sense of justice more profoundly 
in this nation, than any events of our history. Yes, if 
there has been found in all that horrid region where 
rebellion has scorched the very air men breathe, and 
withered all the finer sentiments of the human soul, and 
turned the very fountains of religious life into poisonous 
springs ; there, if an Abdiel has been found, " faithful 
among the faithless, among innumerable false, unmoved, 
unshaken, unseduced, unterrified," that one has been 
marked out for scorn and cruelty, for rapine and for 
murder, even though the reverend crown of age was on 
his brow. 

A thousand times in this war has the sentiment of 
justice within us called for fire from heaven to fall upon 
the monsters. To-day it calls for the extermination of 
a miscreant race, that prove themselves unfit to breathe 
the air of heaven. But even that sentiment must be 
restrained ; for we hear another voice. It proclaims to 
us, " Be still, and know that I am God. I will judge 
nations, communities, individuals, bringing them to my 
bar, to make every man answer for the deeds done in 
the body. Ask no more, wish for no more than that. 
When the time comes for your tribunals in my name to 
try each man by the laws of his country, then stand by 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 41 

your judiciary in its righteous decisions, and let no 
mawkish sentiment check the execution of them." 

Another sentiment is now called into action. 

5. Fear. A new pilot takes the helm. Mysteriously, 
he did not command our respect on the solemn day in 
which the nation put the crown upon his brow, and he 
took the solemn oath of office. He has repented : this 
is all we ask of him. Everything else in his history 
inspires hope, respect, and gratitude. But still, it is not 
the hand that held the rudder-wheel on those tempestu- 
ous nights in which we were running through those 
narrow channels where ruin lay on either side. Fear 
naturally arises in such circumstances. It would come 
up if you were in a steamship at sea, among icebergs, 
with a captain who had sailed only river-craft until now. 

And we have another source of fear. The man who 
has held the powers of Europe at bay may also be 
removed. A new man there would naturally awaken 
solicitude. 

And then, again : how do we know what new phase 
this assassination may put upon a yet unfinished war ? 
what new demonstrations of sympathy with treason may 
spring up in the loyal States ? But when these fears 
start up, we hear a voice saying to them, — " Be still, 
and know that I am God. I kill, and I make alive. Of 
whom hast thou been afraid, and hast not remembered 
me ? Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, 
fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance ; 
he will come and save you." " Fear not, thou worm 
Jacob, and ye men of Israel ; I will help thee, saith the 
Lord thy Redeemer, and the Holy One of Israel." His 
4* 



42 SERMONS ON THE 

aim is to produce in you that confidence which shall 
say : " God is my rock, my buckler. In God have I 
put my trust. I will not fear what man can do unto 
me. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help 
in trouble. Therefore will we not fear though the earth 
be removed, and though the mountains be carried into 
the midst of the sea." 

" Be still, and know that I am God." Do nothing 
rashly, say nothing rashly. Wait until you see the 
pillar of cloud go before you ; then move. Be still. 
Quiet the agitated sea of your heart. Feeling was not 
designed to hold the helm, but simply to fill the sails. 
When trouble comes, be still ; so still that you can hear 
every syllable God is whispering. For, you remember, 
that when the prophet stood upon the mount before the 
Lord, and the Lord passed by, there was " a great and 
strong wind" that "rent the mountains, and broke in 
pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was not 
in the wind ; and after the wind, an earthquake ; but 
the Lord was not in the earthquake ; and after the earth- 
quake, a fire ; but the Lord was not in the fire ; and 
after the fire, a still small voice." There God was. The 
wind is raging and howling around us now, the earth- 
quake shakes the solid globe ; nay, our very hearts. The 
fire is raging. But if we listen only to them, we shall 
not hear the Lord. He is not in them. We must be 
still ; for he comes in the still small voice, in a whisper 
within that soul which waits, above all things, to hear 
him speak. 

Now when we are thus tranquillized, what does the 
Lord say to us ? He says : "lam God." 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 43 

II. His existence, attributes, 'providence, grace, and 
glory are what he would have us to know and permanently 
recognize. " Be still, and know that I am God." 

1. His personal existence he would have us know. 
Just bring this test home to yourself. Imagine one of 
your neighbors to deny that you had a personal exist- 
ence, to try to persuade others that you had not, to treat 
you as if you had not. Nay, let him affirm that you 
lack any one attribute of a rational being, — memory, 
judgment, conscience, affection, — how deeply he injures 
and offends you. And if he be your own beloved child, 
nurtured and cherished by you, how painful his treat- 
ment and estimate of you become ! Judge from that 
how God regards pantheism, polytheism, atheism, 
theoretic or practical. This nation has manifested 
atheism very extensively. The Lord says — do so no 
more. Deny not, forget not my person, my attributes. 
Be not blind, amid the works of my hands, to my glory. 
Be not deaf when I speak to you in my word. Treat 
me as having a heart, an intelligence, a will, of which 
your own is an imitation. Come as children, and speak 
to me daily. 

Oh ! will this nation be still enough now to hear the 
Lord God Almighty assert his own existence, and 
declare that excellence which makes the command to 
love him supremely, infinitely reasonable ? 

2. His providence he ivould have us know. It is a 
providence of care : " upholding all things by the word 
of his power." States and families, like the individuals 
that compose them, "live and move, and have their 
being " in Him. It is a providence of forethought and 



44 SERMONS ON THE 

purpose, directing all events to one glorious issue, from 
the fall of a sparrow, or the shooting of an assassin's 
pistol, to the overthrow of an empire, — making the 
wrath of man to praise Him, and restraining the 
remainder. Look at the shortsighted wickedness of 
Joseph's brethren in sending him into what they sup- 
posed would be a lifelong bondage. Look at Pharaoh's 
oppression, aiming at the extermination of the sons of 
Jacob, resulting in their becoming the medium of salva- 
tion to the world. Look at these conspirators. They 
have now sealed the verdict of the world ; the Confed- 
eracy is a conspiracy of assassins. It began with 
attempted assassination of the chief citizen, the repre- 
sentative man of the nation. It ended in securing his 
murder. They have murdered their strongest friend, 
and broken down the last bulwark that kept the popular 
will from being executed on them. A dark destiny is 
now before them. And woe to the man that now comes 
between them and the preparing blow! They have 
united the loyal citizens more completely in that pur- 
pose which will leave in some places no vestige of them 
but the desolation their wickedness has wrought. They 
have now made the issue. Die they, or the nation 
must. 

Is it not wonderful how God secures his ends by the 
aims and endeavors of those who are attempting to 
thwart his purposes ! See Him, fellow citizens ; recog- 
nize his purposes concerning us, and his employment of 
his and our enemies to execute them. His time has 
come to bring Israel out of bondage, and Pharaoh must 
do it. His time has come to release our African 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLtf. 45 

brethren, but the masters must do it. His providence 
is one of moral judgment. He does not make up the 
full issue for any individual until death occurs. But 
communities He judges here. He declares by his servant 
Malachi : " Then shall ye return, and discern between 
the righteous and the wicked ; between him that serveth 
God, and him that serveth him not. For, behold, the 
day cometh that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, 
yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble." 

What a development have the slaveholders made of 
their character ! Some thought it severe, some untimely, 
for a senator to utter that sentence of judgment on them, 
pronouncing slavery barbarous. But the burning day of 
judgment has now come, and they are witnesses on the 
stand to the truth of the indictment, — arrogance, trea- 
sons, perjury, breach of trust, brow-beating, cruelty, 
assassination ; these are the epithets history will apply 
to their conduct. The great white throne is set, and 
black appears black before it. Davis and Stevens, Lee, 
Toombs and Floyd, Mason and Breckenridge, every 
naval and military officer that left our service, every 
member of their Congress, every gaol-keeper that 
guarded our soldiers in their prisons, every act of vio- 
lence to our negro soldiers in their hands, every loyal 
man of the South that they robbed and murdered, the 
corpse of Abraham Lincoln, the mangled frame of Wil- 
liam Seward are their witnesses. Truly there is a Ne- 
mesis. They have gone like Judas to their own place in 
history. 

To know God in his providence we must become 
familiar with his treatment of the Jews. The Old Tes- 



46 SERMONS ON THE 

tament must enter into our education. He made his 
providence more marked and distinct with them than 
with any other people. He blessed them when they 
recognized his presence, and treated Him as .their bene- 
factor and ruler. But see what terrible displays of his 
displeasure followed their disobedience. Their various 
captivities, of a duration of from five years to seventy, 
and their final dispersion show Him to be a holy God, 
holding nations and communities responsible to Him 
under terrible penalties. 

3. His grace is the other form of manifestation He has 
employed. We must know Him as holy, requiring an 
expression of the evil of sin as great as can be made 
through the cross, in extending mercy to sinners. We 
must know Him as merciful, ready to be reconciled to 
us in Christ ; as ready to make a covenant or compact 
of friendship with us, a covenant containing the richest 
promises of which the mind of man can conceive ; as a 
hearer and answerer of praj^er. 

And this is the end at which He principally aims. 
All the real value of nations recognizing Him is, that it 
implies the personal knowledge of Him by individuals. 
And He counts no knowledge of Him satisfactory and 
complete, except that which leads us individually to 
repent of sin, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
follow Him in the regeneration. Nations perish ; indi- 
viduals live forever. Hence God attaches a supreme 
importance to the personal faith of each individual. So 
it is said: " God so loved the world that he gave His 
only begotten son that luhosoever believeth in Him 
might not perish, but have everlasting life. As many as 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 47 

received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons 
of God, even to them that believed on his name." 

This is, then, the great issue to which the events of 
providence are pointing. The rebellion, this series of 
victories filling the nation with joy and thankfulness, 
this horrible crime filling the nation with grief and dis- 
may, are all revelations of God. His language in the 
events which cheer and gladden you is, " I beseech 
you by the mercies of God that you present" yourself 
tw a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,'' 
The language of an event which arouses the turbulent 
emotions of the heart, exciting grief or fear or anger, 
is. — Be still : hold that feeling in check, and observe 
me. I have come forth from my hiding place, to show 
you I am God. 

Fellow-Christians, we never occupied such a vantage- 
ground as now, for bringing a revolted race to its alle- 
giance to God. Our neighbors are beginning to see his 
presence, to recognize his will and power in passing 
events. For his sake, for their sakes, let us help them 
onward in this direction. Filled with adoration, sub- 
mission, confidence, and love to Him, let us speak of Him 
in the convincing and persuasive words the quickened 
heart can always supply. Oh, may this nation to-day 
hear that voice as distinctly as it was heard from Sinai ! 

Fellow-citizens, make this a religious day, a day of 
thought, of such deep reflection as becomes you as 
rational beings brought into a wilderness of rugged 
rocks and frowning cliffs, of desolation and death, 
where you can, undiverted, hear the voice of God. Be 
still. 



REV. CYRUS A. DARTOL 



ADDRESS. 



I am unable to give, and you perhaps indisposed to 
receive any regular preaching to-day. If 1 can but tell 
you what is in the air ; if I can voice your feeling and 
my own, still more that spirit of God which is ready to 
be voiced by human lips, the real end of our meeting will, 
however informally, be reached. I lay aside therefore 
my written discourse. Though it be ecclesiastically a 
festival this morning, no Romish or other rubric has a 
right to prescribe our theme. I take no text save from 
the Bible of providence, the great book of events, God's 
finger is still writing in burning words every hour. I 
accept his subject, and defer my own. 

I need not even tell the youngest of you what has 
occurred. How all too suddenly it was known ! How 
on the wires it flashed, how in the atmosphere that over- 
hangs, and in every wind that sweeps across our borders, 
it brooded and was borne ! The craped and drooping 
flag, the slow-sounding bell, the minute-gun told it ; 
and had the ocean-telegraph, yet to succeed, only 
served, the brain and heart of the world would be trem- 

(51) 



52 SERMONS ON THE 

bling with one sympathy. California, from our farthest 
bounds, is with us in the same sensation to-day. 

I shrink from naming the deed by which we are 
so stirred. An actor in a theatre performs a part, in a 
scene of real life, which extinguishes all the interest of 
the mimic stage. What a contrast the last tragedy to 
our late jubilee ! God seems to have chosen sacred 
days for his messages,- — on two successive Sundays 
appointing celebrations of victory, — and now giving to 
Good Friday and Easter a new association indeed in 
Christian minds ! 

But, on this dark day, my purpose with you is not a 
lament, but comfort. Let me try to mention some con- 
solations. 

First, though our chief magistrate — all of him that 
could die — is dead, the nation lives. ""What is 
your first impression ? " asked a brother clergyman, 
adding that his was, — the line must be drawn stricter 
between the friends and enemies of this country. A 
second said his first impression was, that an era of mis- 
rule had come. I said, my first impression, after the 
shock of grief, was, — though the President is gone, the 
nation lives, and will live more vital and vigorous for 
this blow. What did the madmen, that struck at the 
Chief and the Secretary, so meanly — at the one from 
behind and the other in his bed — think to do ? To kill 
the nation, to assassinate liberty, to cut the throat of 
law ? What a mistake ! This blow will hurt, not our 
cause, but only the hand that struck it ; and no mis- 
chance to the truth be suffered by Him without whom 
not a sparrow falleth. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 53 

It is one consolation, too, that slavery died more 
swiftly and surely by this very stroke. Most important 
is it, that the act should be traced. We should not con- 
nect it with any quarter without proof. But we know 
its general and most authentic origin. It is not from 
any individual alone, but from the barbarism of slavery. 
That demon whispered in the actor's ear ! That dragon 
fired his passion, and nerved his arm ! His birth and 
breeding were in the hot-beds and centres of slavery, 
slave-breeding, and slave- trading. With indignation for 
the crime, mingles in my mind infinite pity for the crimi- 
nal, whose personal guilt has what palliation depravity 
so deep can find in early nurture, bitter prejudice, or 
constitutional bias. He impersonated slavery itself in 
that theatre, which will hang henceforth, one of the most 
terrible pictures of history, on the walls of time forever. 
The horror affords this solace ; that it hints the death- 
agony of the deadly foe of our republic. The monster, 
pursued in northern seas, is never more dangerous than 
in his dying struggles. Let the boat beware, that ap- 
proaches him, lest the last lashing of his tail mix the 
blood of its crew with his own ! With a worse monster 
than ever swam the deep, this new evidence of malig- 
nity should move us to keep no terms. Let this last 
precious life-current it has caused to flow be the mor- 
dant to set and seal the color of our eternal hatred, not 
to its misguided supporters, but to itself! Now that 
the assassination, which has been for four years and 
more after our Head, has accomplished its end, let our 
consolation be in the slavery's own unsparing destruc- 
tion. 

5* 



54 SERMONS ON THE 

But still another consolation is in the power of jus- 
tice returning to our hands. If we were going to be too 
lenient ; if, to a lax and vicious good-humor, we were 
sacrificing the law and honor of God, we have learned 
that indulgence is not equity, and leniency is not love. 
Not revenge should be our object ; for, spite of the text 
that ascribes it to him, I do not believe it is God's ! 
Nor can we compass the absolute justice which God 
alone can measure out. But, for the protection of so- 
ciety, for the reformation of the criminal, for the guard- 
ing and nursing of the national life, we must watch 
every motion, and strain every nerve. Such atrocities 
of crime as can be traced should have condign sen- 
tence. Those who are responsible for the starving, in 
Southern pens and prisons, of our captured soldiers, 
should have due penalty. We cannot mete out the 
fair desert to all who have committed treason. We can- 
not hang a community. But the wicked leadership, the 
official malice, should feel our express displeasure, in 
the solemn sentence of the law. Let us convert what 
we can, disfranchise what has sinned basely, and banish 
with the mark of Cain what can never belong to us ! 
We are gathering power to do this. The wild beast, 
which we have fought so long in the wilderness and the 
woods, we are getting under. Quickly as possible let us 
set up everywhere the civil and criminal courts ! What 
the national stomach cannot assimilate it must vomit ; 
and not keep it in the system, an indigestible and poi- 
sonous lump. 

The last consolation is, that God can sanctify to us 
our supreme earthly ruler's death. He would not have 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 55 

permitted his life to be taken, had he not done his 
work. He has finished it, how well and nobly! 
Perhaps he would have been too gentle with evil-doers 
in the time to come. " Sic semper tyrannis," shouted the 
tragic actor, after discharging his pistol, as he brandished 
his blade. A strange motto for a slave state ! For a 
murderer, as he slew the softest-hearted of men, a mar- 
vellous cry ! Sic semper tyrannis ! What ! for him, 
Abraham Lincoln, the mildest among all he was set over, 
mild as May, into whose soul, from others' opposition or 
ridicule, no resentment could get ; who never knew, in 
the way of authority or manner, how to get up to the 
dignity of his office ; whose fault, if he had one, was, 
that he was not sufficiently stern with the vileness he 
could not comprehend ; a man of the people, who waited 
before he struck at crime; a waiter on the people, 
who also waited on the Lord, and harkened for the har- 
mony, yet to the coming of God's and the people's voice, 
— he, among whose last accents were words of kindness 
to the rebellious South, he a tyrant ! The speaker on 
the stage was playing indeed, though in a ferocious way. 
He feigned or fearfully mistook the side tyranny was on. 
Davis and Benjamin and Wigfall and Mason and Slidell 
not the tyrants ? Nay, if such as they have not fallen by 
any privy blow, the reason is not that they are not tyrants, 
but we not assassins. Ah ! could the agents and plotters 
of this ghastly crime have themselves only waited a little 
while, the measureless toils of our beloved one, more our 
servant than captain, might have worn him out. They 
need not have been so eager to anticipate the fate for 



56 SERMONS. 

him, toward which he was so rapidly consuming his own 
strength. 

But be it our consolation, that the chariot of the Lord 
goes forward. He that takes hold of the spokes of its 
wheels, shall not stop it. What were the gentlest lips, 
that ever spoke, parted to say ? " He that falls on this 
stone shall be broken ; but on whom it shall fall, it will 
grind him to powder." Truly " the wrath of man shall 
praise him," and " the righteous shall be in everlasting 
remembrance." The " blessed martyr," that bore him- 
self so meekly in the greatest station on earth, has gone 
to his harp and crown in heaven. 

After toil, 
To mortals rest is sweet. 



REV. J. M. MANNING. 



DEUTERONOMY XXXIV: 4, 5. 



And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I 

SWARE TJNTO ABRAHAM, UNTO ISAAC, AND UNTO JACOB, SATING, 
I WILL GIVE IT UNTO THY SEED ; I HAVE CAUSED THEE TO SEE 
IT WITH THINE EYES, BUT THOU SHALT NOT GO OVER THITHER. 
SO MOSES, THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, DIED THERE IN THE 
LAND OF MOAB, ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF THE LORD. 



"According to the word of the Lord." Sweet 
announcement to a broken-hearted nation, to-day ! 
" Abraham Lincoln died this morning at twenty-two 
minutes after seven o'clock." That was the message 
which the wires, heavy-laden with their tidings, sobbed 
forth yesterday in all our pleasant places. And we awoke 
from our troubled sleep this morning, and, lo ! it was 
not a dream ! " According to the word of the Lord." 
" Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." 
We look above all human agency. We recognize the 
will that never errs nor falters, and that worketh all 
things, in Heaven and on earth, after its own perfect 
counsel. 

" So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there." 
He had brought us through the " great and terrible 

(59) 



60 SERMONS ON THE 

wilderness," unto the borders of our goodly heritage ; but 
was himself forbidden to enter. May the same God, 
who made him so much better than our fears, — such a 
father to us all, — do even greater things for the Joshua 
who succeeds him as the leader of our Israel ! To this 
petition, every heart devoutly responds Amen! New 
responsibilities sober men oftentimes. Possessing real 
goodness of heart, they bend their shoulders loyally to 
the unexpected burden, and display great qualities of 
which they were thought destitute before. Thus a 
bereaved nation prays and hopes. 

How incomplete, how complete, the dear life that has 
passed on ! The surroundings, the hour, the instrumen- 
tality, — how painful ! Why could not the name of one 
whom we so loved, whom we so tenderly revered, have a 
seemlier passage to its immortality? Thou, Lord, 
knowest ! Thou dost not respect the person of any man. 
" Wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person 
perish." " Man being in honor abideth not." " Like 
sheep they are laid in the grave ; death shall feed on 
them." We had traced a resemblance, often, between 
our beloved President and the great Prince of Orange, — 
called William the Silent. The same devotion to country, 
the same trust in a Divine Providence, the same cautious 
and persevering wisdom, the same tender regard for the 
people who confided in them. Oh, could not the 
parallel have been left imperfect ? Must it be carried on 
to the bitter end ? We loved to think that they were 
alike in their patriotism ; but — poor, blinded mortals ! — 
we did not foresee the dreadful event that was to make 
them so much alike in their death ! Both slain with wife 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 61 

and friends around them, in the moment of social free- 
dom and unconcern, by the assassin who long had been 
waiting for his chance to strike. 

Let me quote from history, " On Tuesday, the 10th 
of July, 1584, at about half-past twelve, the Prince, 
with his wife on his arm, and followed by the ladies and 
gentlemen of his family, was going to the dining-room. 
William the Silent was dressed upon that day, according 
to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He wore a 
wide-leaved, loosely-shaped hat of dark felt, with a 
silken cord round the crown, — such as was worn by the 
Beggars in the early days of the revolt. A high ruff 
encircled his neck, from which also depended one of the 
Beggar's medals, while a loose surcoat of grey frieze 
cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide, slashed 
underclothes, completed his costume. Gerard (the 
murderer) presented himself at the doorway and de- 
manded a passport. The Princess, struck with the pale 
and agitated countenance of the man, anxiously ques- 
tioned her husband concerning the stranger. The Prince 
carelessly observed that it was merely a person who 
came for a passport ; ordering, at the same time, a secre- 
tary to prepare one. The Princess, still not relieved, 
observed in an under- tone that she had never seen so 
villanous a countenance. Orange, however, not at all 
impressed with the appearance of Gerard, conducted 
himself at table with his usual cheerfulness, conversing: 
much with the burgomaster of Leewarden, the only 
guest present at the family dinner, concerning the politi- 
cal and religious aspects of Friesland. At two o'clock 
the company rose from the table. The Prince led the 
6 



62 SERMONS ON THE 

way, intending to pass to his private apartments above. 
The dining-room which was on the ground-floor, opened 
into a little square vestibule, which communicated, 
through an arched passage-way, with the main entrance 
into the court-yard. This vestibule was also directly at 
the foot of the wooden staircase leading to the next 
floor, and was scarcely six feet in width. Upon its left 
side, as one approached the stairway, was an obscure 
arch, sunk deep in the wall, and completely in the 
shadow of the door. Behind this arch a portal opened 
to the narrow lane at the side of the house. The stairs 
themselves were completely lighted by a large Avindow, 
half-way up the flight. The Prince came from the 
dining-room, and began leisurely to ascend. He had 
only reached the second stair, when a man emerged from 
the sunken arch, and, standing within a foot or two of 
him discharged a pistol full at his heart. Three balls 
entered his body, one of which, passing quite through 
him, struck with violence against the wall beyond. The 
Prince exclaimed in French, as he felt the wound, 
"O my God, have mercy upon my soul! O my God, 
have mercy upon this poor people ! " 

Such was the death, and such the last exclamation of 
the great and good father of modern liberty, the son and 
sire of illustrious princes, the wise subverter of despot- 
isms, the champion of popular rights, to whom, more 
than to any other man perhaps, the world is indebted 
for free institutions and free ideas. Who can doubt, 
if strength had been left our good President when the 
fatal bullet struck him, that he also would have exclaim- 
ed, '• O my God, have mercy upon my soul ! my God, 
have mercy upon this poor people ? " 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 63 

So alike, in the circumstances of their departure, how 
doubly consoling now to trace the previous parallel 
between their lives. 

Listen. " His constancy in bearing the whole weight 
of a struggle as unequal as men have ever undertaken, 
was the theme of admiration even to his enemies. The 
rock in the ocean, ' tranquil amid raging billows,' was 
the favorite emblem by which his friends expressed their 
sense of his firmness." Can you not, as you hear 
these words, almost see the calm figure of Abraham 
Lincoln in his cabinet, quietly meditating his wise plans 
of deliverance, while the nation was quaking with fear, 
and some were wildly urging him to take the archives 
and flee ? That rock, " tranquil amid the raging bil- 
lows," has sunk to re-appear in another Sea where, as we 
would fain hope, only the billows of peace shall kiss it 
forever more. Hear, again, of the immortal Prince, 
whom our chief magistrate so closely resembled. " The 
supremacy of his political genius was entirely beyond 
question. He w r as the first statesman of the age. The 
quickness of his perception was only equalled by the 
caution which enabled him to mature the results of his 
observations. His knowledge of human nature was pro- 
found. He governed the passions and sentiments of a 
great nation as if they had been but the keys and chords 
of one vast instrument ; and his hand rarely failed to 
evoke harmony even out of the wildest storms." Strange 
that this man should have lived three hundred years ago ! 
It seems to us that we saw him but yesterday, laying his 
patient hand upon a sea of warring interests and opin- 
ions, and soothing them to peace and loyal co-operation ; 



64 SERMONS ON THE 

moving so evenly that neither extreme was pleased at first, 
though both were satisfied at last ; now seeming to go 
beyond, and now to come short of our eager wish. Yet 
true to his great duty, as the North-star to its eternal 
vigil, high and calm and clear, always in his place, 
shining with still and equal beam until our morning 
began to dawn, then wrapping his mantle of light about 
him, and joining the mighty host of the invisible. 

" God alone knows the heart of man. He alone can 
unweave the tangled skein of human motives, and detect 
the hidden springs of human action ; but, as far as can 
be judged by a careful observation of undisputed facts, 
and by a diligent collation of public and private docu- 
ments, it would seem that no man, not even Washing- 
ton, has ever been inspired by a purer patriotism." 
That was said of Orange, after all the history of his 
public and private life had been carefully summed up. 
But there is much in Abraham Lincoln — the sweetest 
and tenderest traits in his character — of which we have 
seen but glimpses yet. Still we feel no hesitation to-day 
in placing him, so far as patriotism and honesty of 
motive can go, on the same pedestal with Washington. 
And then, beyond what we now accord him, how his 
name will brighten as it rises out of present conflicts 
into the serene sky of history, as all his little, half- 
forgotten acts of love come welling up into the memo- 
ries of us all ; as prejudice and passion cease clouding 
our vision, and we see him " travelling in the greatness 
of his strength," one of the choice company of imperial 
souls, garmented and crowned with the gratitude of the 
ages, along the starry pathways of the immortal ! 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 65 

"His temperament was cheerful. At table, the plea- 
sures of which, in moderation, were his only relaxation, 
he was always animated and merry, and this jocoseness 
was partly natural, partly intentional. In the darkest 
hours of his country's trial, he affected a serenity which 
he was far from feeling, so that his apparent gayety, at 
momentous epochs, was even censured by dullards, who 
could not comprehend its philosophy. He went through 
life bearing the load of a people's sorrows on his shoul- 
ders with a smiling face. Their name was the last word 
upon his lips, save the simple affirmative with which the 
soldier who had been battling for the right all his life- 
time, commended his soul, in dying, ' to his great cap- 
tain, Christ.' The people were grateful and affection- 
ate, for they trusted the character of their ' Father Wil- 
liam,' and not all the clouds which calumny could collect 
ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty 
mind, to which they were accustomed, in their darkest 
calamities, to look for light. As long as he lived, he 
was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when 
he died the little children cried in the streets." How 
apt the characterization ! The Hollanders never said 
"Father William" more affectionately than we shall 
say " Father Abraham" henceforth. He did " bear the 
load of a people's sorrows on his shoulders with a smil- 
ing face." We do understand, at length, " the philoso- 
phy of that jocoseness " which troubled some of us at 
times while he lived. It was the oil lubricating the 
overtasked mechanism of that patient body and mind. 
It was the kind disguise, under which he concealed from 
us the deep anxiety of his heart, and bade us hope on, 
6* 



66 • SERMONS ON THE 

as though he were not himself almost ready to despair. 
It is plain to us now. We would not have his quaint 
stories one the less. Death has touched his unstudied 
manners, and lo ! they are full of an immortal charm. 
Woe to the biographer who attempts to make him any- 
thing less plain than he was ! Woe to the artist who 
tries to soften one feature, or to take one line out of his 
honest face ! We love him, just as he was. We cannot 
spare one of his peculiar traits. He must be all there, — 
in history, in our memory, in imagination, — forever al- 
lowed to be just what God made him. And we will risk 
the verdict of the ages, for God's noblest work is an 
lionet man. 

In one point the parallel between Mr. Lincoln and the 
Prince of Orange fails. The Prince made a tour through 
the provinces, " honoring every city with a brief visit. 
The spontaneous homage which went up to him from 
every heart was pathetic and simple. There were no 
triumphal arches, no martial music, no banners, no the- 
atrical pageantry, — nothing but the choral anthem from 
thousands of grateful hearts. "'Father William has 
come ! Father William has come !' cried men, women, 
and children to each other, when the news of his arrival 
in town or village was announced. He was a patriarch 
visiting his children, not a conqueror nor a vulgar po- 
tentate displaying himself to his admirers. Happy were 
they who heard his voice, happier they who touched his 
hands ; for his words were full of tenderness, his hand 
was offered to all. There were none so humble as to be 
forbidden to approach him, none so ignorant as not to 
know his deeds." 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 67 

" None so humble as to be forbidden to approach 
him." Is there any but one man alone, of whom we 
can think to-day, as we hear those words ? the tall, 
swaying form rising to welcome the poor freedwoman 
into his own family circle, — bidding her sit down in his 
own arm-chair, the tears gathering in his eyes as he lis- 
tened to her simple story of sufferings and wrongs, — 
introducing her to his wife and friends, and waiting upon 
her as carefully as though she had been a queen. " His 
words were full of tenderness." That we might know 
by looking into his deep, sad, almost tearful eyes. "He 
was very pitiful, and of tender mercy." And the tones 
of his voice, falling on the ear of distress and wretched- 
ness, will linger, in sweet benedictions, until the ears 
that heard them are dull and cold as his own. "A 
patriarch visiting his children." Such he would have 
been, no doubt, had he lived to indulge his goodness, 
and to please the ardent wish of thirty millions of 
people. We know what our welcome would have been. 
But Ave cannot conceive the great love which would 
have gushed up unto him out of the soft hearts of a 
disenthralled and enfranchised race. His first concern 
was to save " his children," then he would have leisure 
to "visit" them. Thank God, we are permitted to 
believe that he fulfilled the main purpose : may he 
receive, in the streets of the Golden City, the offerings 
of love which are due him from his delivered " children!" 
" No triumphal arches, no martial music, no banners, 
no theatrical pageantry," but a voice, as the voice of 
many waters, saying unto him, next after the Lamb 



68 SERMONS ON THE 

that was slain, " thou hast redeemed us by thy 

ELOOD ! " 

How incomplete, yet how complete ! 

" No waning of fire, no quenching of ray, 
But rising, still rising, when passing away ! 
Farewell, and all hail ! thou art buried in light ! 
God speed theeto heaven, O star of our night !" 

How complete ! Would he not say so, as to all that 
concerned his country, if his spirit could stoop for a 
moment, and touch those cold lips which are sealed for- 
ever ? Would it not have filled out the utmost stretch 
of his ambition and earthly hope, when he came from 
his simple home in the West, had he known, — that the 
State across which he was borne secretly and in dis- 
guise, would come first, singing the paeans of freedom, 
to lay its offerings of thanksgiving at his feet ; that he 
should live to issue, in the providence of God, a procla- 
mation giving manhood and womanhood to four millions 
of slaves ; that he should hear of his own plain name, 
tenderly spoken all over the earth wherever goodness is 
revered and liberty loved ; that he should be permitted, 
by his wise counsels, seconded by the able captains 
whom he drew to his cause, to make his distracted 
country feared and respected throughout the civilized 
world ; that the very day on which his summons to 
eternity should come, would be but the fourth anniver- 
sary of the day on which the Starry Banner stooped to 
the dust at Fort Sumter ; and that on that day the 
same banner, by the same hand which surrendered it, 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 69 

should be lifted up to its ancient height, but covered 
with more than its ancient glory, — had he foreknown all 
this, would he not have said, " Lord, that will be 
enough : then let thy servant depart, for mine eyes will 
have seen thy salvation ? " 

" Follow now, as ye list ! the first mourner to-day 
Is the nation, — whose Father is taken away ! 
Wife, children, and neighbor may moan at his knell, 
He was lover and friend to his country as well ! 
For the stars on our banner, grown suddenly dim, 
Let us weep, in our darkness, — but weep not for him ! 
Not for him, — who, departing, leaves millions in tears ! 
Not for him, — who has died full of honor and years ! 
Not for him, — who ascended fame's ladder so high, 
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky ! 
It is blessed to go when so ready to die ! " 

I will not attempt to scan the counsels of the Most 
High, and to say why it is that we are thus bereaved. 
Perhaps it is better for us that we should be orphans 
to-day, than that he whom we loved to call " Father" 
should have been spared. His paternal heart, had it 
still throbbed in life, might have proved too tender for 
the stern work we are yet to do. He disliked the sight 
of blood. He was melted by tears. He was made soft 
as woman by the tones of pleading wretchedness. We 
do not know ; but there is One who does know. The 
Eye which looks through all things, may see, in the 
feeble man whom He now chooses, a strong, innate sense 
of justice. That man, upheld by our sympathies and 
prayers, and inspired by God's special grace, may prove 
to be the sword of divine justice, executing wrath upon 



70 SERMONS ON THE 

the evil-doers. Those who naturally exult over the 
tragedy, may find that only mercy is slain, while ven- 
geance yet lives ! Lives, did I say ? ah, yes ! and 
roused up to an intensity of fury which will require all 
our might to restrain ! " Traitors ! would you have for- 
giveness ? go seek it of him whom your bloody hands 
have slain ! " — that is the voice which now rises up 
and rolls over the land, from shore to shore. But God's 
way is " far above." It is his glory to conceal a thing. 
" Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath 
been his counsellor ? " It seems to us, even in this 
bitter hour, that we see the trailing splendors of the 
inner light which he inhabits ; " but how little a portion 
is known of Him ? the thunder of his power who can 
understand ? " 

We have one occasion of thanks, in this hour of 
agony, in the fact that our departed ruler was not a 
king. Had he been the sovereign, who can tell what 
anarchy might now ensue ? But the people are the 
sovereign, and he was their minister. We may thank 
God that our " king never dies." He is myriad-handed 
and myriad-eyed. We look for no disturbance, no be- 
wilderment, for no wandering up and down, as of sheep 
not having a shepherd ; but for a full and clear compre- 
hension of the exigency of the hour ; for a calm wisdom, 
and prompt energy, on the part of a great people, which 
has successfully grappled with so many dangers in the 
past. Perhaps God is giving us our grand opportunity 
to show to an incredulous world, that we are indeed a 
government by the people. Had not our beloved Presi- 
dent been taken from us, had he lived until we were 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 71 

clearly out of all our troubles, it might have been 
pleaded that his personal wisdom carried us through. 
Not so now. That cavil against free governments can- 
not be made. We may solve the problem on its own 
ground now, with no helping element to throw uncer- 
tainty around the result. We, by our steadiness to 
duty and firm resolve, may now prove, that, whoever 
dies and whoever lives, while the people live the gov- 
ernment cannot be overthrown, or falter in its course. 

But ah ! poor human reason, be still. I seem to hear, 
" Be still, and know that I am God. Shall I not do 
what I will with mine own ? And may I not choose my 
own instruments, with which to rule in the armies of 
heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth ? " O my 
brother mourners ! let us take refuge in the thought that 
" the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Not a sparrow 
falleth on the ground without your heavenly Father. 
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and 
blessed be the name of the Lord. Vv 7 hen father and 
mother forsake me, the Lord shall take me up. He 
careth for us in the day of our orphanage and grief. 
His arm is stronger than any arm of flesh, — an ever- 
lasting arm, and it is underneath us all. He saves us 
from the terror by day, and the fear by night. All 
events, and the passions and outfoaming wrath of men, 
are subject unto Him. He holds them and us, and our 
nation and the world, all the living, and the departed 
whom we mourn, in the golden net- work of his purposes 
of love. And He will show us, when He unrolls that 
web to the eye of "the incorruptible," that all its threads 
are mercy and judgment ; and that the hand which has 



72 SERMONS. 

woven it through the ages, and wrapped it around all 
the interests of all the children of men, has never been 
stretched out or withholden, nor lifted up in seeming 
displeasure, but to fulfil some kind and wise design. 

" And the children of Israel wept por Moses in the 
plains of moab thirty days i so the days of weeping and 
mourning for moses were ended. 

And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of 
wisdom ; for Moses had laid his hands upon him : and the 
children of Israel harkened unto him, and did as the 
Lord commanded Moses." 



REV. JOHN E. TODD 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



The Lord reigneth. — Psalms xciii : 1. 



God cannot die. Beyond the reach of the fatal dart 
of disease, or the withering touch of creeping age, or the 
breath of the pestilence, or the missiles of battle, or the 
arm of the cowardly assassin, He lives and reigns ; and His 
throne, girt with justice and judgment, mercy and truth, 
is forever and ever, and the thoughts of His heart are unto 
all generations. This is our only consolation to-day. 

It would be in vain for me to attempt to speak to you 
at this time on any other subject than the one which fills 
every mind and heart ; and yet I have nothing to offer 
but the confused and bewildered thoughts of a mind which 
is still too much under the influence of the excitement 
and horror of the recent shock, to be able to act clearly 
and collectedly. 

The tidings were too terrible to be comprehended or 
credited at once : the President foully assassinated in 
the very presence of the people, with deliberate fore- 
thought ; the Secretary of State stabbed while lying on 
a sick bed, and his attendants killed and wounded. Other 

(75) 



76 SERMONS ON THE 

important officers of government, — the Secretary of 
War, the Lieutenant- General of the United States Army, 
— escaped only, without doubt, in consequence of unex- 
pected detention from the President's side. Such was 
the dreadful story. It was ticked off at first, at mid- 
night, to a few blanched faces, and was rejected. It 
came again with stronger authority. It stared out in 
grim and terrible lines from the morning papers, making 
the brain of the reader to reel, and the heart to grow 
sick It was told in husky and frightened tones by one 
to another, and with voices choked with tears. It 
leaped from face to face, pale and livid, as we never saw 
the faces of the people before. It began to fringe the 
flags, and darken the streets which were but recently so 
gay. It began to create gloom, and a hush and loneli- 
ness in business haunts, which, but a few days since, 
were filled with crowds and processions and cheers and 
music. It began to wail from steeple to steeple. It 
broke at last from the cannon's mouth in solemn thunder. 
And, at length, we begin to realize to-day, that our 
beloved President is no more. 

It is a terrible national calamity, such as has not fallen 
upon us since we became a nation. It is an atrocious 
crime such as is almost unparalleled in history. It is 
universally regarded as such by the people. Never have 
they been so moved. No tidings of victory or defeat, 
not even the intelligence of the first assault upon the 
flag at Sumter has so stirred the depths of popular 
feeling. The country is swept to-day by a storm of 
silent but intense and very dangerous passion. 

The feelings which these heavy tidings have univer- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 77 

sally excited, are — I mention them in the order in 
which they naturally arise — horror, grief, rage, anxiety. 
The country is convulsed with these emotions. 

The first emotion experienced by every one upon 
learning of this terrible event was one of unmitigated 
horror, and it is a feeling from which we have not yet 
recovered. There were various things fitted to intensify 
it. We had not yet recovered from the ecstasies of 
delight occasioned by victories unprecedented in modern 
warfare, and which gave promise of speedy peace. The 
horrible tidings found us on the heights of exultation, 
and the fall in our feelings, and the shock, were propor- 
tionally tremendous. It was of all things the least 
expected. At an earlier stage in our national troubles, 
grave apprehensions were entertained of attempts upon 
the President's life. But for four years the enemy had 
forborne to resort to assassination ; and, among the 
people of the loyal States, the President had been stead- 
ily gaining in the confidence and esteem and love of all. 
It was hardly imagined that he could have a personal 
enemy. The crime seemed horrible, because perpetrated 
upon a person of such high position, the head of a 
powerful nation, the equal of a king, or rather the 
superior ; for kings rule by birthright, Presidents by the 
people's choice. It seemed horrible, because it was 
committed upon a man of such unoffending goodness. 
It seemed horrible, because it was committed from such 
a motive. Assassination is a new weapon in politics in 
this country. It seemed horrible, because it was a part 
of a conspiracy against a number of the heads of govern- 
ment, and was executed, so far as it was executed, with 
7* 



78 SERMONS ON THE 

such brutal and blood-thirsty ferocity. It seemed 
horrible from the circumstances of its commission 
With that confidence in his fellow-citizens which has dis- 
tinguished every President, and led him to dispense with 
a body-guard, — a confidence which President Lincoln 
had especial right to feel, he had gone with a part of his 
family, unattended, to the theatre ; not that he cared to 
go, but that he did not care to disappoint the people. 
He had been received with unusual demonstrations of 
enthusiasm and affection. Seated in a rocking-chair by 
the side of his wife, and with a multitude of his people 
around him, and regarding him as a father, he rested 
from the cares of office. Suddenly a man, — a man ! — 
availing himself of the President's confidence, approached 
him stealthily from behind, and, without a word of warn- 
ing, with a coward's hand and eye, fired at his head ; 
then, rushing to the front, dropped upon the stage, 
brandished a knife, and uttered a tragic exclamation in 
his last role, disappeared behind the scenes, threaded 
the familiar passages, emerged into the open air, and 
escaped. Escaped ? Ah, no ! he should have committed 
his crime among some people less unitedly devoted to 
their Chief Magistrate ; he should have done it in the 
empire of some other God. He will not escape. He 
may take the wings of the morning and fly to the utter- 
most parts of the sea ; he may make his bed in hell ; 
but he will not escape. 

The first feeling of uncontrollable horror is succeeded. 
by one of profound grief. It is not merely sorrow that 
such a crime should have to darken the annals of Amer- 
ican history. It is not merely disappointment in being, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 79 

after all, cheated out of the ruler of our choice. It is 
not merely the gloom which a great crime always throws 
upon a community. It is not merely a regret for the 
uncertainty which this event throws upon our future. 
There is in the heart of the people a profound grief 
arising from a sincere and very strong attachment to 
President Lincoln. And well he deserved our attach- 
ment. This is not the time to enter upon any extended 
or thorough examination of his life and character ; but 
I camiot omit this opportunity to add my humble tribute 
to his worth to those of my countrymen. 

President Lincoln assumed the reins of government 
when the whole country was in confusion, when whole 
States were in rebellion, when the hands of the gov- 
ernment were paralyzed. He was bitterly hated and 
opposed by a great minority, even in the States by 
which he was elected. He was ridiculed and hooted, 
not only by the press of the enemy, but by that of all 
Europe. During his administration he has felt com- 
pelled to employ not a few measures which have created 
very great discussion and feeling. And yet, after four 
years of unprecedented difficulties and trials, he has 
come forth, I need not tell you with what triumphant 
successes for our country ; — I need not tell you with 
what enthusiastic admiration of his countrymen, even of 
many who once opposed him ; with what admiration and 
respect in foreign lands, and among the enemy. Such 
a record is one of which to be proud, and proves that 
he had greatness. 

He was never a leader, he always followed public sen- 
timent ; but he followed it with the accuracy and fidelity 



80 SERMONS ON THE 

of a stag-hound. Some of us would have preferred a 
bolder and fiercer leader ; but, on looking back, we can 
see that such an one would either have ended our strife 
prematurely before its results were accomplished, or more 
probably would have divided us so that we never could 
have done anything. Some of us have disapproved of 
some of his measures, but the result has generally shown 
that he was more sagacious than we. He may some- 
times have erred, in the opinions of some, from the strict 
line of prerogative, but his sterling principle and noble 
purposes kept such aberrations, if there were any, from 
doing harm. He was a man of the purest and highest 
motives, and the strongest principle. His chief aim was 
the welfare of his people, and with the heart of a true 
statesman he loved all, even his rebellious people. He 
was willing to sacrifice himself to any extent. He never 
used his office and power to enrich himself or his family. 
He did not allow himself to be governed by his party, 
or to become a tool in the hands of his political friends. 
He never espoused theories, but was governed by expe- 
rience. He never took any notice of abuse, — never lost 
his self-control. He could not be brought to a hasty 
decision ; could not be turned when once decided. He 
endured the mistakes and disobediences of his civil and 
military officers with a patience which was marvellous. 
The people had learned to have confidence, not only in 
his honesty of purpose, but in his strength and sagacity 
of mind. His personal character was without a stain. 
His manners were plain, but unaffected and hearty. His 
benevolence was unbounded. Many are the hospitals 
which he has visited, the soldiers whom he has grasped 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 81 

by the hand, the widows and mothers to whom he has 
sent a word or line of sympathy, the personal appeals 
from the humblest individuals which he has answered. 
Nothing is more remarkable than his kindness toward 
the colored race, and the earnest and determined purpose 
with which he set about their emancipation, and yet the 
subordination in which he kept this sovereign purpose to 
the work of extinguishing the rebellion. 

His faults, for grave faults undoubtedly he had, were 
principally those of over-leniency and generosity, delib- 
eration and patience, — faults which would have been 
excellences in less desperate times, and which even in 
these times have probably been our salvation. His vir- 
tues were such as would have adorned a king. There 
is another bond between President Lincoln and many of 
us, a bond which not even death can sever. He was, to 
all appearance, a Christian man, and in the sense in 
which we understand the term. If a conversation which 
has been reported really occurred, he professed to have 
consecrated himself amid the graves of Gettysburg to the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and to be endeavoring to live by the 
faith of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. 
The public documents which have issued from his pen 
have certainly been remarkable, especially of late, for 
their religious tone. This trait in President Lincoln's 
character, so distinguishing him from all his predecessors, 
rendered him especially interesting to the Christian mind, 
and will irradiate his grave with a peculiar and glorious 
hope. We have, at length, a President who *' sleeps in 
Jesus." 

President Lincoln was remarkably a man of the peo- 



82 SERMONS ON THE 

pie, and not merely in having traits which won popular 
confidence. He was one of the people. He rose from 
the humblest class ; he had a popular way of talking and 
writing ; he could get hold of the popular heart. It is 
doubtful whether any of our Presidents, even Washing- 
ton himself, was so thoroughly in the sympathies and 
affections of the people as President Lincoln was. The 
people themselves did not know how much they loved 
him, till he was stricken down. There have been many 
bitter tears shed in every city and hamlet of the North, 
within the last few hours, over the tidings of his fall. 
Strong men have wept, and been convulsed with grief, as 
if they had lost a father or a brother. Oh, if votes could 
raise him from that bier to that chair of state, what a ballot 
would the North cast now ! The nation mourns, with a 
sincere and sacred grief. No such sorrow has ever 
touched the national heart. These draperies, in which 
the land is dressed to-day, these solemn-tolling bells, 
which speak to one another from valley to valley, from 
hill-top to hill-top, give expression to no formal mourn- 
ing ; they tell of a real, profound, and mighty grief. 

There is a consolation in the midst of this grief; in 
the return of a day suggestive to very many minds of a 
triumph over death. We do not follow our noble chief- 
magistrate to the grave with the feeling that this is the 
last. We are spared the sadness with which we are too 
often compelled to witness the end of earthly greatness. 
Gloom has no place around the grave of the Christian. 
How sublime and comforting those words which seem to 
float to-day over the whole land, echoing through its 
numberless cemeteries and battle-fields, and lingering to 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 83 

touch alike the bier of the Christian President and the 
sod that covers the Christian slave, " I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live" ! 

There is another feeling which naturally succeeds the 
emotions of horror and grief; it is rage. I would not 
say a word to inflame the passions and exasperation 
which are already filling the public mind. I would 
rather say that which may soothe excited feelings. It is 
a time for every man to lay upon himself a strong con- 
trol. It is easy at such a time to be ungenerous and 
unjust. Let us discountenance all violence and passion, 
and seek the punishment of evil-doers only through the 
legally constituted channels. Let us not be violent even 
in our defence of the fallen. Let us remember that there 
is one thing more sacred than even friendship, and that 
is liberty. The contemptible creatures who profess to 
rejoice in the work of an assassin are not worth spend- 
ing rage upon ; there is nobler game afoot. Let us not 
waste too much passion upon the perpetrators of this 
dastardly crime ; — not that they are not deserving of 
indignant condemnation, and condign punishment; 
they must receive it. But their importance is not com- 
mensurate with the mischief which they have done. To 
lavish indignation upon them is to misuse and waste it. 

Let us not jump hastily to the conclusion that the 
perpetrators of this vile deed were in the employ or the 
counsels of the enemy. For one, I do not believe that 
the Southern leaders are too honorable to stoop to such 
a deed ; 1 do not believe that they are too shrewd to see 
that it would injure rather than serve them. But let us 



84 SERMONS ON THE 

not come to conclusions without proof. We can wait 
for the light of evidence. 

But there is one direction in which the general indig- 
nation may be properly turned, — always in lawful ways 
and the appropriate channels, — and that is against the 
rebellion, and all who uphold it. The real spirit of 
secession, the kind of men who are most devoted to 
it, the conduct which it inspires, are made obvious in 
one more notable instance. If, in the providence of God, 
this last utmost stroke of malignity shall be the means 
of opening the eyes of this people to the real character 
and spirit of secession and secessionists, the calamity 
will not have been sent altogether in vain. It will begin 
to be found out at last, that the men who are rabid with 
secession, the leaders, or rather, the mis-leaders of the 
South, are not men to be paroled, and let off with politi- 
cal disabilities, and shaken by the hand, and feted : 
they are men to be hunted down like wild beasts, and 
sent to the prison and the gallows ; that secession is 
not to be vanquished by leniency and kindness, but is to 
be stamped out with the iron heel. This is said, not in 
any spirit of vengeance and wrath, but from a solemn 
conviction that the true interests of the country, and true 
humanity and religion, require the prosecution of a vig- 
orous policy of extermination and utter subjugation. 

The spirit of secession has at last shown itself in 
every possible variety of form. It is the spirit of hate, 
the spirit of murder, the spirit of cowardly cruelty and 
treachery, the spirit of barbarism, the spirit of hell. If 
men will not renounce it now, and all connection with 
it, and all sympathy with it, let them be, by the proper 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 85 

authorities of course, cut down without mercy. Let our 
indignation take the form, not of frantic and revengeful 
passion, but a stern and united determination that this 
rebellion, with its leaders, and with all who persist in 
upholding it, shall be wiped out, so that no one will 
ever be able to find the stain where it was. 

There is one other feeling which fills almost every 
mind, — it is anxiety. 

President Lincoln's life was one on which much 
seemed to be depending. He had won the confidence 
of the people ; he was meeting with triumphant suc- 
cess ; his policy was somewhat apprehended ; his plans 
seemed to be working well. But now a cloud is sud- 
denly fallen upon the future. What kind of a man the 
new President will prove himself, — who will be his 
friends and advisers, — what policy he will pursue, and 
what the results will be, — how well he will succeed in 
uniting the people in himself, — and what is before us, 
are matters of blind conjecture. I might present to 
you some considerations of a subordinate character, cal- 
culated to afford hope and encouragement ; I might 
point you to the cheering features in the past career of 
the new chief magistrate ; I might remind you of the 
overwhelming successes already achieved, and how little 
in the way of conquest remains to be done ; I might 
show you, that the union and strength of feeling which 
this very calamity has caused is auspicious : but of the 
worth of such considerations, you are better able to 
judge than I. I prefer only to remind you that we are 
under the rule of a wise and benignant God, who dis- 
poses and ordains all things for the best. What He 
8 



86 SERMONS ON THE 

does we do not always know now, but we shall know 
hereafter. The event which has crushed our hopes and 
spirits seems to be one of those mysterious and inscru- 
table permissions, with which He is wont to remind us, 
that His ways are not as our ways. To us it seems a 
terrible and irreparable calamity. I confess, that as I 
look at it from one side and another, I can hardly find 
a single bright spot to relieve its darkness. But let us 
have faith in God ; I doubt not that He has some wise 
purpose to serve, some great end in view, though it is 
now hidden from us. I cannot fathom His motive in 
allowing this awful crime ; perhaps this was needed to 
bring the people to some desired point ; perhaps He had 
a work to be done fitter for some other hands than those 
which have done so much noble work, and are now for- 
ever still ; perhaps He found that we were not hum- 
bled enough, and has more trouble in store for us ; I 
will not pretend to explain the enigma, but I am very 
sure that there is wisdom and mercy in it all ; and 
wisdom and mercy for us. I do not believe that God 
intends anything but that which in the end will be best 
for our beloved but unhappy country ; the prayers and 
tears of our fathers will not permit Him to give us up to 
ruin. I do not believe that the safety and prosperity of 
this country are dependent upon the life of any one man, 
however great and good ; much less can I believe that 
they are in the hands of an infuriated and probably 
drunken actor. God is able to raise up other instru- 
ments instead of those that he lays down. Moses may 
lie down to die, on the very borders of the promised 
land, but a Joshua shall be raised up to lead the people 
in to possess it. And it is remarkable how often it 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 87 

happens, in the providence of God, that the Moses dies. 
It is seldom granted to the same man to guide through 
the desert, and to enter into the land of promise. 

For President Lincoln himself, perhaps there was no 
better time to pass away. He fell in the very height of 
glory. Just re-established in the Presidential chair by 
the overwhelming choice of his countrymen, risen into 
the profound respect of the civilized world, permitted to 
see his long watchings and toils crowned with success, 
to rejoice in stupendous military achievements, in the 
prospect of speedy peace, and in the assured approach 
of universal freedom, to fall honored by all men, 
wept by a nation, in the bosom of his family, with 
his cabinet around him, with a nation waiting in 
tears, in the hope of the gospel, was a death be- 
coming a Christian patriot, — a glorious death to die. 
It may be that he could not, in a hundred years, have 
found a moment in which to fall so lamented, or leave 
behind him such a memory. Henceforth a humble tomb 
in the capital of Illinois will divide with Mount Vernon 
the homage and pilgrimages of our countrymen. Perhaps 
if these mighty dead, the leaders in the two wars for 
freedom, are permitted to revisit their resting-places, the 
murdered President will experience the greater joy, in 
finding not only his head-stone worn with the kisses of 
his own race, but the sods of his grave sprinkled with the 
tears of eyes that used to weep in the house of bondage. 

God bless the memory of Abraham Lincoln ! 

God bless the President ! 

God in his mercy bless and save these United States 
of America ! 



REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 



8* 



2 TIM. 1 : 10 



Who hath abolished Death. 

[Indiana- Place Chapel was decorated on Easter with appro- 
priate and symbolic ornaments. The entire chancel was covered 
with a rich purple fabric looped to the wall at different points with 
wreaths of white flowers. Over the chancel, fixed to the wall, 
was a large cross surmounted by a crown, and at the side 
appeared the words " He is Risen," each worked in foliage and 
flowers. There were also numerous bouquets and single speci- 
mens of choice flowers and plants placed at different points in the 
chapel, which, with the national colors draped in mourning 
drooping from the gallery, heightened the general effect.] 

When Jesus died, it seemed as if the last hope of the 
world had perished. It seemed as if God had left the 
earth alone, — it seemed as if there was no Providence 
left. It was the blackest hour in the history of the 
human race. The power of darkness was at its height. 
Satan had conquered God. One man had at last 
appeared capable of redeeming mankind ; he had given 
himself to that work, — one man teaching and believing 
a religion spiritual, humane, free ; above ceremony, 
above dogmas, above all fanaticism, enthusiasm, formality. 

(91) 



92 SERMONS ON THE 

He was here ; the one being who knew God wholly and 
human nature exactly ; who could say, " I and my 
Father are one," " I and my brother are one." No sin 
terrified him, for he was able to cure the foulest diseases 
of the human heart and soul. From him flowed a life, 
sl vital power, which strangely overcame diseases of the 
body and the soul. He was young : he had just begun 
his work. A world dying of weariness, an exhausted 
civilization, a worn-out faith, longed to be regenerated. 
The great auroral light of Greek intelligence had died 
away. The stern virtue of Rome had ended in effemi- 
nacy and slavery. The world, prematurely old, asked 
to be made young again ; and here was the being who 
could do it. And then men took him and murdered him. 
They assassinated their best friend. Black treason, in 
the form of Judas ; cowardly desertion, in his disci- 
ples ; shameful denial and falsehood, in the person 
of Peter ; time-serving selfishness, in Pilate ; cruel 
policy, in the priests ; blind rage, in the people ; 
cold-blooded barbarism, in the Roman soldiers, — 
all these united in one black, concentrated storm of evil, 
to destroy the being so true, so tender, so gentle, so 
brave, so firm, so generous, so loving. It was the blackest 
day in the history of man. 

And yet we do not call it Black Friday or Bad Fri- 
day ; we call it Good Friday. We call it so, because 
the death of Christ has abolished death ; because evil 
that day destroyed itself; sin, seeming to conquer, was 
conquered. And so we see, in the death and resurrection 
of Jesus, the great law revealed, that we pass through 
death to life, through sorrow to joy, through sin to holi- 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 93 

ness, through evil and pain to ultimate and perfect 



We dress our church in flowers to-day in token of this 
triumph. Nature, every spring, renews her miracle of 
life coming out of death. The little, tender buds push 
out through the hard bark. The delicate stalks break 
their way up through the tough ground. The limbs of 
the trees, which yesterday clattered in the wind, mere 
skeletons, are now covered with a soft veil of foliage. 
Earth clothes itself with verdure, and these spring flow- 
ers come, the most tender of the year. They come, like 
spirits, out of their graves, to say that Nature is not dead 
but risen. Look at these flowers, — living preachers! 
" each cup a pulpit and each bell a book," and hear 
from every one of them the word of comfort : "Be not 
anxious, be not fearful, be not cast down ; for if God so 
clothe us, and so brings our life out of decay, will He 
not care for you and yours evermore ? " 

On this day of the resurrection we commemorate the 
subjugation of the last enemy, — Death. " He has abol- 
ished death," says our text. Abolished it ; or, as the 
same word is elsewhere translated, " made it void" ; that 
is, emptied it of reality and substance ; left it only a 
form ; "made it of no effect; destroyed it; brought it to 
nothing ; caused it to vanish away?' Death to the Chris- 
tian ought not to be anything. If we are living in ter- 
ror of death, if we are afraid to die, if we sorrow for our 
friends who die as those who have no hope, then we are 
not looking at it as Christians ought. We ought to be, 
and we can be, in that state of mind in which death is 
nothing to us. 



94 SERMONS ON THE 

For what makes death terrible ? First, it is terrible 
because it ends this life, and all the enjoyment and inter- 
est of this life. We are made with a love of life, and 
God means we should love it. 

We are made to be happy in the sight of nature ; in this 
great panorama of sky and land, hill and plain, sea and 
shore, forest, mountain, rivers, clouds, day and night, 
moon and stars, work and play, study and recreation, 
labor and sleep. We are made to enjoy the society of 
friends, the love of the near and dear, the quiet of home, 
the march of events, the changes of the seasons, the 
vicissitudes of human and national life. Death seems to 
be the end of all this ; and so we shrink from death. But 
that is because we do not see that all these things are 
the coming op God to us ; that these are God's words 
and God's actions ; that when surrounded by nature we 
are in the arms of God, and that all these things are 
from him, and through him, and to him. And as when 
we die we do not go away from God, so we shall not go 
away from all this beautiful variety and harmony, this 
majestic order and transcendent beauty of creation. We 
shall doubtless have more of it, know it better, enjoy it 
more entirely. And so, since Christ makes us realize 
the presence of God in nature, history, life, he abolishes 
thereby that death which seems to come to take us from 
them. 

Another thing which makes death a terror is our own 
consciousness of sin. The sting of death is sin. But 
Christ removes this sense of sin, by bringing to us the 
pardon of sin. The conditions are simple and practi- 
cable : repentance and faith. If we turn from our sin 



* DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 95 

and renounce it, and then trust in the pardoning grace 
of God, we are forgiven our sin Then not only the 
mercy, but the truth and justice of God are pledged to 
forgive us. "If we confess our sin. God is faithful and 
just to forgive us our sin." No one need to remain 
with a sense of unforgiven sin in his heart. In his 
dying hour, as in his life, Jesus sought to lead mankind 
out of the feeling of sin into that of reconciliation. 
When he said to the sinful woman, " Go, and sin no 
more ; neither do I condemn thee " ; when he said of the 
other sinful woman, '« Her sins, which are many, are for- 
given ; for she loved much " ; when he told the story of 
the prodigal son, to show how God sees us when a great 
way off, and receives us back at once into the fulness of 
his love ; when, at his death, he said, " This is my 
blood, which is shed for you, and for many, for the 
forgiveness of sin," he sent into the soul of men the 
conviction that they could be at one with God notwith- 
standing their evil. 

And the resurrection of Christ has abolished death, 
because it shows us that death, instead of being a step 
down, is a step up. It shows us Christ passing on and 
up, through death, to a larger life. It shows that when 
he died he did not close his work for man, but began to 
do it more efficiently. The resurrection of Jesus was 
the resurrection of Christianity ; the rising up of human 
faith and hope. Jesus rose into a higher life, and his 
disciples then rose into a higher faith. They became 
strong, brave, generous, true. Their weaknesses and 
follies fell away from them. Christianity broke the 
narrow bands of Jewish ceremony, and became the reli- 



96 SERMONS ON THE *. 

gion of humanity and of all time. The world seemed to 
have lost everything when Christ died ; but it really gained 
everything. His followers, "risen with him," "sitting 
in heavenly places " with him, sought and found deeper, 
higher, larger views of Christianity. And so his word 
was fulfilled : " I, if I be raised up, shall draw all men 
unto me." 

When the awful news came yesterday morning of the 
assassination of our President and of Mr. Seward, and 
the other murders which accompanied those acts, it 
seemed impossible to dress this church with flowers, 
impossible to keep Easter Sunday with joy to-day. As 
on Thursday we changed a Fast into a Thanksgiving, so 
it seemed to be necessary to-day to change this feast of 
joy into a day of fasting and sorrow. Yet, after all, the 
feelings and convictions appropriate to Easter are what 
we need to-day. When we say " Christ is arisen," 
we are lifted into that higher faith which is our only 
support and comfort in calamities like these. 

Perhaps the crime committed last Friday night, in 
Washington, is the worst ever committed on any Good 
Friday since the crucifixion of Christ. It was not only 
assassination, — for despots and tyrants have been 
assassinated, — but it was parricide ; for Abraham 
Lincoln was as a father to the whole nation. The 
nation felt orphaned yesterday morning, when the black 
tidings came ; for during these four years we had come 
to depend on the cautious wisdom, the faithful con- 
science, the shrewdness, the firmness, the patriotism of 
our good President. We have all quarrelled with him 
at times ; we wished he would go faster ; we wished 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 97 

he had more imagination, more enthusiasm : but we 
forget all our complaints to-day, in the sense of a great 
and irreparable calamity. Had he been a tyrant and 
despot, there would have been the excuse for the act 
which we make for Brutus and Cassius ; but the chief 
fault of Abraham Lincoln was that he was too forgiving 
to his enemies, too much disposed to yield to those from 
whom he differed, and to follow public opinion instead 
of controlling it. He could not bear to punish those 
who deserved it ; and the man who will suffer the most 
from his death is his murderer, for had Lincoln lived, 
he would have forgiven him. Simple in his manners, 
unostentatious, and without pretence ; saying his plain 
word in the most direct way, and then leaving off ; he 
yet commanded respect by the omnipresence of an honest 
purpose, and the evident absence of all personal vanity 
and all private ends. Since Henry IV. fell by the dagger 
of Ravaillac, no such woe has been wrought on a nation 
by the hand of an assassin. Good Friday was well 
chosen as the day, — a day dedicated to the murder of 
benefactors and Saviours. We shall miss him often in 
the years to come, for when shall we find among poli- 
ticians one so guileless ; among strong men one with so 
little wilfulness ; among wise men one with so much 
heart ; among conservative men one so progressive ; 
among reformers one so prudent ? Hated by the South 
from that instinct which makes bad men hate the good- 
ness which stands between them and their purpose, he 
never hated back ; reviled by the most shameless abuse, 
he never reviled again. Constant amid defeat and 
disaster, he was without exultation in success. After 
9 



98 SERMONS ON THE 

the surrender of Lee, he caused to be written on the 
Capitol the words, " Thanks he to God, who giveth us 
the victory." 

And so we find him mourned equally by the con- 
servative and the progressive wing of the loyal people, 
because he was in reality a thoroughly conservative and 
a thoroughly progressive man. Both could depend on 
him as truly their own leader. For his moderation was 
not the negative moderation of a compromise which 
balances between two extremes, but the positive modera- 
tion of the large sincerity which accepts the truth on 
both sides. The Conservatives knew that he was 
sincerely cautious, and were sure he would never act 
rashly. The Progressives knew that he was sincerely 
ready to reform evils ; and though he might move slowly, 
certain to move forward. 

Fortunate man ! who thus exhausted the experience of 
life, beginning as a splitter of rails and ending in a chair 
higher than a monarch's throne ; studying his grammar 
by the fire-light of a log-cabin when a boy ; when a 
man, addressing the senate and people from the capitol 
of a great nation ; tried by hardship, hardened by labor, 
toughened by poverty, developed by opportunity, trained 
by well-fulfilled duties, chosen by God to be the emanci- 
pator of a race, and the saviour of a nation's life ; and 
then, having finished his work and seen the end near, 
crowned with the martyr's halo, to be made immortal 
through all history and all time as the chief actor in the 
greatest drama of modern days. Happy in life ; happy 
also in the opportunity of death, for when could death 
come more welcome than on that day, when, having 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 99 

emancipated the slave, having conquered the rebellion, 
having walked into Richmond and written a letter at 
Mr. Jefferson Davis' desk, and having directed the flag 
to be restored on Fort Sumter, he commanded recruiting 
to cease throughout the land, and declared to Europe 
that the blockade was at an end, and the war over as far 
as foreign nations were concerned ? Macaulay says of 
Hampden : " Others could conquer, he alone could 
reconcile. It was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud 
and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflicts of sects 
and factions, ambitious of ascendency, and burning for 
revenge ; it was when the vices and ignorance which the 
old tyranny had generated endangered the new ireedom, 
that England missed that sobriety, that self-command, 
that perfect soundness of judgment, that perfect recti- 
tude of intention, to which the history of revolutions 
furnishes no parallel, — or furnishes a parallel in 
Washington alone." 

" The history of revolutions has furnished another par- 
allel in Abraham Lincoln." So says a late London jour- 
nal ; for even London journals have learned to look 
through the rough shell to the rich kernel. Abraham 
Lincoln is essentially of the same type as Washington. 
Washington was born and bred a patrician, — the lord of 
slaves and of broad acres. Lincoln was born and bred 
a plebeian, — a man of the people. But subtract these 
surface-differences and they were radically the same ; 
each built up of conscience and of common sense. 
Neither of them had imagination ; but that was a bless- 
ing : it saved their lives. For if, in addition to the 
heavy weight of real responsibilities, there had been 



100 SERMONS ON THE 

added the sleepless anxiety of a mind which constantly 
pictures to itself all possible contingencies, they would 
both have died, worn out by exhaustion. In the gallery 
of the world's great men our good Abraham Lincoln will 
stand hereafter by the great shape of Washington, hav- 
ing as great a work to do as he, and having done it as 
well. 

But what shall we do without him ? What shall be- 
come of us, in this doubtful Present around us, this dark 
Future approaching us ? We thought our trials over ; 
they seem about to begin anew. But we have learned 
in these years to see the hand of God in all things, and 
how He makes the wrath of the wicked to praise Him. 
Still let us believe that He knows what we need, and 
that this black event will also turn to good. Let the 
day on which he fell teach us a lesson — saddest day in 
the history of men. The death of Jesus, at the begin- 
ning of his work, seemed the direst calamity that could 
befall mankind. It was the loss of the one being whom 
the world could not afford to lose, — the one perfect soul 
the race had produced ; cut off, with his word appa- 
rently half uttered, his work seemingly half done, his 
life half lived, leaving only a few half-taught disciples 
behind him. 

But as out of that evil came so much good, so out of 
this God will educe the blessings and discipline we want. 
i We thought our trials over ; but perhaps we need more. 
The people of the North, always hopeful and good- 
natured, needed perhaps another example of the spirit of 
barbarism which has grown up in slavery, in order not 
to trust again with power any of this existing race of 
rebels. Always audacious, they were just about to 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 101 

come together to tell us how the Union was to be recon- 
structed. Having been beaten in the field, they were 
quietly stepping forward to claim the results of victory. 
But this murder has probably defeated their expectations. 
As Abraham Lincoln saved us, while living, from the 
open hostility and deadly blows of the slaveholders and 
secessionists, so, in dying, he may have saved us from 
their audacious craft, and their poisonous policy. We 
are reminded again what sort of people they are. 

It is idle to say that it was the work only of one or 
two. When the whole South applauded Brooks in his 
attempt to assassinate Charles Sumner ; when, during 
these four years, they have been constantly offering 
rewards for the heads of Lincoln and of Butler ; and 
when no eminent Southern man has ever protested* 
against these barbarisms, they made themselves accesso- 
ries before the fact to this assassination. Throughout 
the South, to-day, there is, probably, very general exul- 
tation. Fools and Blind ! Throughout the North, 
this murder will arouse a stern purpose, not of revenge, 
we trust, or only such a revenge as will consist with the 
memory of Lincoln. The revenge we shall take for the 
murder of Lincoln will be, to raise the loyal black popu- 
lation of the South not only to the position of freemen, 
but of voters ; to shut out from power forever the leaders 
of the rebellion ; to re-admit no Southern State into the 
Union until it has adopted a free-state constitution, and 
passed that anti-slavery amendment so dear to Abraham 
Lincoln's heart. * We might not have insisted on these 

* See, at the end of this discourse, an extract from the sermon 
preached by the writer on Fast Day, the day before this assassi- 
nation, in regard to these points. 
9* 



102 SERMONS ON THE 

conditions, — perhaps it was necessary for Lincoln to 
die, to bring the nation to the point of demanding them. 

I suppose that since the beginning of the world, there 
never was an hour in which a whole nation experienced 
at the same moment such a pang as was felt from Maine 
to San Francisco yesterday morning. The telegraphic 
wires sent a thrill of horror into every city and every 
large town on the Atlantic and Pacific, on the Kennebec 
and the Missouri, at the same time. It was like the 
blow of a hammer descending on the heart of the nation. 
But such a hammer and fire welds together the soul of a 
people into a strong, righteous purpose. As the attempt 
of Guy Fawkes to destroy the British Parliament united 
all England for two centuries against the Papacy ; as the 
attempt of Brooks to murder Sumner united the free 
States against slavery, so this crime will unite the whole 
North to make thorough work with the rebellion, and 
put it down where it can never stir itself again. 

The word " assassin," it is said, was introduced into 
Europe by the crusaders, and took its name from that 
mountain chief whose followers devoted themselves to 
murder any of his foes. He was named Ha-shish-in : 
so named from hashish, the intoxicating herb, which 
they took to give themselves the energy of madness. 
Assassins are always madmen, — they destroy the cause 
they mean to help. 

To-day, then, amid our grief and tears, let us not lose 
that trust in Providence which the past four years have 
been teaching to this nation, — and which every Good 
Friday and Easter Sunday, during eighteen centuries, 
have been teaching to mankind. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 103 

" Bear him, brothers, to his grave ; 
Over one more true and brave 

Ne'er shall prairie grasses weep 
In the ages yet to come, 
When the millions in our room, 
What we sow in tears, shall reap. 

" One more look of that dead face, 
Of his murder's ghastly trace ! 

One more kiss, O widowed one ! 
Lay your left hands on his brow, 
Lift your right hands up, and vow 
That his work shall yet be done. 

" Patience, friends ! The eye of God 
Every path by murder trod 

Watches, lidless, day and night ; 
And the dead man in his shroud, 
And his children weeping loud, 
And our hearts, are in his sight. 

" We, in suffering, — they, in crime, 
Wait the just award of time, 

Wait the vengeance that is due ; 
Not in vain a heart shall break, 
Not a tear for Freedom's sake 

Fall unheeded : God is true. 

" Lay the earth upon his breast, 
Lay our slain one down to rest, 

Lay him down in hope and faith. 
And above the broken sod, 
Once again to Freedom's God 

Pledge ourselves for life or death.'* 



104 SERMONS ON THE 



NOTE. 

The following extract from a sermon preached by the writer, 
two days before, gives a further explanation of the points touched 
on our page : — 

No doubt much remains to be done. The gravest questions 
rise before us. There loom up now the questions, " what shall 
be done with the rebels ? Shall the leaders of the rebellion be 
punished, and how ? What shall be done with the conquered 
States ? How shall they be governed ; by military or civil power ? 
In answering these questions it is evident, that, first of all, we 
need guarantees that the substantial results of the war shall not 
be lost — that the cure of the South shall be radical — that there 
shall be no more treasons, no more rebellions. Any leniency 
that overlooks this necessity is not moderation, is not generosity 
—it is folly, cruelty, and crime. We may forgive; but we 
have no right so to forgive as to leave the old conspirators with 
power to conspire again. 

What guarantees, then, do we need ? Plainly, the first is the 
utter abolition and destruction of slavery in the South. We 
must not have.it in any form or shape. We must not allow it 
to remain as apprenticeship, or as serfdom, or as pupilage. But 
can this be done if we give back the power over the Southern 
States into the hands of the old disloyal leaders, now made ten 
times as bitter as before their defeat ? I see by the prints that 
distinguished citizens of Virginia are on their way to Washing- 
ton to arrange terms for the reconstruction and re-admission of 
Virginia into the Union. What do we want of distinguished 
citizens of Virginia ? We want them all to keep out of the 
vay. We are to deal now with the real people of the 
South, colored and white, not with the old slaveholding aristo- 
cracy. We do not want any Hon. Mr. Hunters or Breckinridges ; 
no Governor Wise, no Governor Foote, to arrange terms with. 

It seems to me that the question of punishment may be en- 
tirely set aside. We do not wish to punish any one. " Ven- 
geance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." They will be 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 105 

punished enough, no doubt of that. If defeat, disgrace, and 
utter ruin are punishments, if contempt at home and neglect 
abroad are punishments, if to have shown a want of statesman- 
ship and ignorance of history, to have destroyed the peace and 
prosperity of these States is punishment, they have it. We 
have, no doubt, a right to punish them to any extent. The 
crimes of rebellion, treason, and waging civil war without a 
cause, are the blackest which can be committed by man. To 
lose life, property, and all, is not too severe a punishment. But 
what we wish is not to punish them, but to protect ourselves. 
And the most moderate punishment which is adequate is the 
best, because it is the most certain to be inflicted. And there- 
fore I say, that, in my opinion, what we want is to keep all the 
old rebel leaders, and old slaveholding aristocracy out of the 
way, until the States of the South can be re-organized on the 
basis of freedom. We want to keep them from having anything 
to do with the government or control of the South until every 
Southern State is as loyal as Massachusetts. Now, every emi- 
nent Southern man is liable to be tried, convicted, and put to 
death for treason under the law of 1790. It is true that he 
can only be tried within the State where the act of treason 
was committed. But when Lee invaded Pennsylvania, he com- 
mitted treason there, and so did the whole rebel government, for 
in treason all are principals — and the purpose of overthrowing 
the government of the United States by arms is a treasonable 
purpose — and every one who deliberately aids in any way that 
purpose, even by furnishing supplies, is held by the Courts to 
be a principal. 

The punishment of death for treason is therefore hanging to- 
day over the head of every man concerned in the rebellion. 
They may be very grateful if allowed to escape by exile, confis- 
cation, and disqualification. But looking, not at vengeance or 
punishment, but simply at self protection, it is my opinion that 
we might agree to waive the trial for treason, and substitute for 
it these penalties : 1st. In the case of Jefferson Davis, and his 
government, and all the chief conspirators, we might substitute 



106 SERMONS. 

for death, exile for a term of years, — say ten years. This would 
be so moderate a punishment that it would pretty certainly be 
carried out. 2d. Then for those who have left the service of 
the United States to fight against it, and for the civil officers of 
the rebel States let the punishment be disqualification for any 
office, and inability to vote duiing ten years. So fast do things 
move in this country, that in ten years, when the exiles return, 
they will find no opening left for them, all their influence gone, 
others in their places, the whole machinery of state re-organized, 
and they all sent into obscurity and oblivion. 3d. Let all those 
who have committed specific crimes, such as murdering citizens, 
starving to death our prisoners, and killing colored persons in 
cold blood, be tried and punished for those crimes under the 
laws. 4th. Let all the common people who have been forced 
and cheated into rebellion be pardoned on taking the oath of 
allegiance and keeping it. 5th. Let no rebel State be re-admit- 
ted into the Union till its Legislature has passed the Constitu- 
tional amendment abolishing slavery in the United States. 

This is my plan for reconstruction. Let the military govern- 
ment of the U. S. be continued over the States, and let garrisons 
of colored troops be kept in all the large towns. Let no State 
be re-admitted till a convention of the people has met, revising 
its Constitution and abolishing slavery, and till its Legislature 
has passed the Constitutional amendment. Let the Federal 
Courts for the District of Pennsylvania find indictments for 
treason against every member of the rebel government, rebel 
Congress, and every head officer in the rebel army. Let the 
Federal Courts in Ohio, Maryland, and Missouri, do the same. 
Then let Congress be called together, and modify the law, substi- 
tuting exile for a term of years, and disqualification for office, 
under certain conditions. So that by accepting and submitting 
to the lesser punishment, they may escape the greater. 



REV. GEORGE H. HEP WORTH. 



MATTHEW IX: 15. 



"Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn as long 
as the Bridegroom is with them ? But the days will come 
when the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then 
shall they fast." 



Brethren, last Thursday morning I read to you the 
first part of the verse which I have chosen for my text. 
It was a day appointed for fasting, humiliation, and 
prayer ; but so signal had been the victories of the few 
preceding days, that this people, with one accord, united 
their voices in a great chorus of thanksgiving. Little 
dreamed we then, that so soon the latter clause of my 
text would call this mourning nation to the saddest duty 
of its life. 

Who can measure the great grief of this people ? The 
blow came so unexpectedly, that we hardly yet know 
how to express our feelings in fitting words. Each man 
weeps for a friend in the loss of this our Foremost Amer- 
ican Citizen. When the dreadful tidings first flashed 
upon our hearts, it seemed too appalling to be credible. 
We struggled against it. The wires have played us 
10 (109) 



110 SERMONS ON THE 

false, we said, and we almost grew indignant with the 
tamed lightning which but a few hours before had 
thrown the whole North into such a bewilderment of 
joy as it told us the story of the fall of Richmond, and 
which now changed our joy into the very bewilderment 
of woe as it wrote upon the bulletin, " The President is 
dead ! " We did not know how much we loved that 
good man, nor how much confidence we had reposed in 
him, until the fearful certainty of our loss assured us. 
Was ever public officer so sincerely mourned before ? 
Every home of the North will drop its tear of genuine 
sorrow upon his grave, for mothers sent their boys to do 
the dreadful work of war all the more willingly because 
our commander-in-chief was so prudent, careful, and 
thoughtful ; every hamlet will learn the lesson of the 
hour from its draped pulpit when the preacher shall tell 
how fell the unsullied patriot from the affections of the 
whole people into the bosom of immortal life ; every 
city, from where the Atlantic wave moans its sorrow to 
the rising sun to where the Pacific sighs out its grief to 
the sinking orb, testifies its respect and love for the 
great man, by those emblems which sadly decorate 
every public building, if not every private residence, 
and which always tell us that the people's heart is 
heavy. 

Brethren, it is not merely a brave warrior whom 
America mourns. No battle chieftain, however great 
his exploits in the field of danger and of conquest, 
could ever rouse such love as this we bear to Abraham 
Lincoln. It is not merely the clearness and sagacity of 
his mind that most we miss. No philosopher, however 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. Ill 

gifted, ever rested so securely in the affections of the 
whole community. No : these tears are shed for one, 
who, standing on an eminence so high that few would 
not be made dizzy by it, walked humbly, honestly, 
and faithfully, doing the greatest work of many a cen- 
tury, as a servant of the people and a servant of God. 
We felt that the Republic was safe while he stood at 
its head. In those seasons of intense public excitement 
when great and important questions were to be decided, 
— questions affecting our welfare in the distant future, 
and our relations to foreign powers, — he was the calmest 
man in the country ; and many and many a time, when 
we have rebelled against his judgment, and given way to 
passionate criticism, we have learned to regret our own 
heat, and wonder at his serenity. Ah ! where shall we 
not miss him ? His influence was potent within the 
halls of Congress, shaping the legislation which is to 
affect the country when the glad morrow of peace 
comes ; it was felt in all the ramifications of our 
foreign and domestic policy, tempering all decrees by 
a statesmanship not more remarkable for its sagacity 
than for its kind consideration of all parties ; and it 
will be felt by every soldier in the field in whose heart 
the destinies of his native land and the name of Abra- 
ham Lincoln have been so intimately interwoven. 

In 1809, in a little village in Kentucky, beneath the 
thatched roof of a poor man's cottage, was born a child, 
whose prospects for the future seemed very limited. 
He received from his parents nothing but poverty and a 
good name. His childhood was in no degree remarkable. 
There were no foreshadowings of the greatness to be 



112 SERMONS ON THE 

achieved, and very few of those traditions of wonderful 
precocity, which, in some mysterious way, cluster about 
every eminent name. His library consisted of a well- 
thumbed Bible, and his fortune of an empty purse. 
He spent the first thirty years of his life upon that 
monotonous plane on which every poor farmer's boy 
lives. He spent his days in driving the team afield, in 
caring for the little flock as it wound slowly o'er the lea, 
and in the common drudgery which marks the lowly 
position he occupied. 

When he was on the threshold of middle life, a 
resident of a village in Illinois, he was intrusted with 
some slight responsibility by his fellow-citizens. He 
was regarded with kindness because he had been some- 
thing of a traveller, and an observer of men and things — 
having made a voyage down the lordly Mississippi — and 
because he had given his services to the Government in 
the Black Hawk war, and shown no lack of courage, but 
rather a quiet persistency and fearlessness which added 
to the lustre of the shoulder-straps which made him a 
captain. Having served his constituents faithfully in a 
minor position, he began that slow and toilsome journey 
of promotion, which is marked at every step by honesty 
of purpose; and which ended, when, obedient to the will 
of the North, he assumed the position of President of the 
United States. 

Never have I been more proud of my country than 
when, gazing upon the lowly spot on which he was 
born, and the straitened circumstances of his youth, 
and then upward to the proud position he won for 
himself. I remembered that in America we have no royal 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 113 

circle from whose narrow limits the rulers of the kingdom 
are chosen, while the gaping multitude look on in open- 
mouthed wonder ; but that every boy on the continent 
has royal blood in his veins, and, if he but will it, he 
shall rise, forgetful of his humble origin, — nay, nay, 
forgive me, proud of his humble origin, — to the most 
responsible positions in the land. Happy country, which 
sees the brilliant light of promise and of hope in the eye 
of every boy ! Blessed institutions, which instead of 
veneering the top of society, sends the school-book and 
the prayer book to the lowliest, and electrifies the great 
body of the people with an honorable ambition ! 

If a stranger were to offer his criticism upon Mr. Lin- 
coln, I think the first characteristic of which he would 
speak would be the extreme and charming Simplicity of 
the man. This is so marked a peculiarity, that no one 
can have failed to notice it. It is to be observed not 
only in his daily talk, and in his always courteous 
bearing, but also in his public speeches, and in those 
documents, some of which are to become a part of our 
national literature. He is the most truly Republican 
President we have ever had. Occupying a position as* 
important and as influential as that of the Emperor of 
France, he carried to the White House the rigid sim- 
plicity of his Illinois home ; and in his endeavor to do 
the work, — the arduous work of the hour, — he forgot 
to put on any of the trappings or pomp of royalty. 

So noticeable was this peculiarity, that many of us 

regretted what we called a certain want of refinement. 

We would have had him keep in remembrance that he 

was President of the United States ; but he could never 

10* 



114 SERMONS ON THE 

ignore the fact, that he was simply Abraham Lincoln. 
To say what he meant, was his ambition ; and to mean 
what he said, was a matter of honor. Perhaps he did 
not always indulge in court language ; perhaps he was 
not as graceful as some lesser men have been ; but he 
always acted the wise, prudent, and manly part. He 
claims our forbearance for telling an apt story; for wit 
and sarcasm, which sometimes seem out of place ; but 
he has no need to seek our forgiveness for connivance 
against the honor of the Republic. Grace of bearing is 
a good thing ; but unswerving integrity is sublime, even 
when it is awkward. For my own part, I am glad that 
we have at last had a President who scorned to use the 
privileges of his position for the study of the rules of 
politeness ; and who, a yeoman, would not ape the 
courts of Europe, but set himself at work to do a real 
service for his country, at a time when she had been 
robbed by so-called gentlemen of the first families, and 
must be set right, if at all, by the great mass of the 
common people and their representative. 

If you should look this broad continent over to find a 
man who came from the people, who knew their wants 
and their troubles by experience ; who had been edu- 
cated only in the schools of the people ; who possessed 
their confidence ; who was proud of his ability to do 
them good ; who had been led neither by scholarship 
nor ambition to a forgetfulness of their exact condition : 
in other words, if you should search this nation through 
to find a man who should be a true type of the America 
of to-day, you could not discover one so fit for the pur- 
pose as Abraham Lincoln. In his earnestness and in 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 115 

his wit ; in his persistency and in his good humor ; in 
all the angles of mind, character, and life, he was the 
best man of this generation to show the strength and 
the peculiarities of the American. 

He was pure-minded, seeking not for himself with 
unhallowed ambition of conquest, but rather for his 
country, with the holy ambition of the patriot. He was 
pure-hearted, governed in all his dealings by a pervading 
sense of moral responsibility. He was unsuspicious, — 
alas, alas, brethren, he was too unsuspicious ! he believed 
too much in the honor of those around him, and for this 
reason he sleeps upon his bier, while a nation bends in 
tears because his slumber knows no waking. 

Another marked characteristic of the man was his 
Religious Faith, his often avowed belief that this people 
are in the especial keeping of Providence, and that it was 
his duty as President to await the expressed will of God, 
and then to act. He was not of that company of heroes 
who win the sympathy of many by electing themselves 
men of destiny ; but he firmly believed that this nation is 
a nation of destiny, and was modest enough, aye, humble 
enough to forget himself in his honest endeavor to obey 
the people's will. I delight to linger on this part of our 
great leader's character; for our public men have so often 
been mere politicians, winning their way to position by 
those various arts which are recognized as legitimate in 
the circles where they are used, but hardly looked upon 
with favor by an impartial religion, that it is exceedingly 
refreshing to know that in the time of our country's dire 
necessity the highest officer of the nation was the 
humblest of us all, and sought to know the will of God 



116 SERMONS ON THE 

before lie listened to the will of man. I verily believe 
that the religious view of the war, — and this seems to 
me to be the sublimest fact of the war, — which has 
pervaded every class in the community, and shown itself 
in the subdued manner in which, for the last two years, 
we have received the tidings of every great victory, is 
greatly due to the position assumed by Mr. Lincoln. 
How easily he could have stirred this people to acts of 
revenge, — acts which we might never cease to regret, 
— had he but issued a series of documents filled with 
revolutionary rhetoric. But instead of this, America 
has often been quieted in the hour of intensest excite- 
ment by the moral weight of our President's character 
and words. 

I do not speak thus as one who blindly praises the 
dead. I have no desire to lift Mr. Lincoln into the 
upper region of a faultless manhood. I have no wish to 
forget the fact that he had faults, — ay, even grave 
faults, — in speaking of his virtues. At a more appro- 
priate time, I may give you an estimate of his relation 
to, and influence upon, the age ; but now our sorrow and 
our love are our only eloquence, and in reckoning the 
qualities which so endeared him to us, we will not forget 
that the tone of simple trust in God, which gave depth 
and beauty to nearly all his public documents, and which 
in private intercourse made so lasting an impression upon 
those who were privileged to take his hand, did much, 
very much, — even more than we knew at the time, to 
direct public opinion into those channels through which 
the popular feeling and excitement naturally flowed 
towards a religious view of our national affairs. And 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 117 

who can tell the benefit of such a tendency? Who 
knows how much of the moral strength of this people 
to-day comes from this fact ? 

Many a time have delegations from various organiza- 
tions gone to this First Citizen of America, and said : 
"Mr. Lincoln, this people believe that, you have been 
providentially placed in this position for the salvation 
of the nation. Every village church in the land lifts 
its fervent petition in your behalf, and every loyal 
man feels that he may trust you to vindicate and 
establish his dearest rights ; " and the old man, in- 
stead of drawing himself up to his full height, and, 
in courtly fashion, receiving this language as hom- 
age done to himself, has bowed his head as in the 
presence of sublime duties, and consecrated the memory 
of the interview with tears. Brethren, these things are 
not often written in the biography of great men. 

One other characteristic of which I must not fail to 
speak was his Firmness. Justice has never been done 
to Mr. Lincoln in this respect. He was not one of those 
boisterous men who herald the fact that they have strong 
wills, and who seem to act as though an unbending will 
was the chief element of heroism. He had his own way 
very quietly, yet he generally had his own way,. He 
knew the value of advice when given by his peers, and 
was always courteous and deferential while it was being 
bestowed. But he held it in about the same estimation 
in which others of the world's best men have regarded 
it, — a something which it is very necessary to receive, 
but not always necessary to heed. 

It is rather a peculiar fact in the history of his admin- 



118 SERMONS ON THE 

istration, that while so many have blamed him for lag- 
ging behind the people, nearly all have thrown the odium 
of such sloth upon him personally, as though it were 
the natural tendency of his character, and not the result 
of any outside influence. The future historian will give 
him credit for a degree of determination in the estab- 
lishment and execution of his public policy which may 
surprise us all. He made but little noise, yet he is more 
responsible for the acts of his administration than any 
President we have had for many a year. 

And now he is gone. Alas ! a good man and a true 
man has been taken away. Steadily our love and respect 
for him has increased since 1860. He early won, and 
has steadfastly kept our confidence in the progress of 
this tremendous struggle ; and now we may say, without 
fear of contradiction, that no man ever wielded such 
power, and made so few enemies. I repeat it, no man 
ever wielded such power during four successive years of 
Hood and sacrifice, of tears and death, and made so few 
enemies. 

"He was a man, take him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again." 

And now he is gone : gone when we seemed to need 
him most, and when we loved him best : gone from a 
good life to a better ; from the soldier's home on earth 
to the soldier's home in heaven ; from his triumphs to 
his reward : gone to the blessed company of great men, 
who, in times past, have led the people on from sin to 
liberty, and laid down their own lives as a willing sacri- 
fice on the altar of progress. To-day, while we mourn, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 119 

he sits in the council-chamber where martyrs and heroes 
are convened ; where are Washington, and Adams, and 
Hancock, and Warren ; and he is their peer in the love 
he bore his country, and the love his countrymen bore 
to him. 

O, exalted spirit ! if you can spare a single moment 
to look from those heavenly realms which have so lately 
burst upon your enraptured vision upon our bereaved 
homes, you shall see how dear was the place you held 
in all our hearts. You have been the people's friend, 
and they put the evergreen of gratitude about your 
name. Calmly you have led us, wisely, tenderly, and 
yet firmly, through four times twelve months of woe. 
You have gone with us into the valley of defeat, 
where we have reckoned the fearful cost of life which 
was marking the uncertain progress of the war. You 
have been with us when the glad tidings of victory came, 
and we have always found you our friend, faithful and 
true ; our leader, just and wise. 

You need no monument to tell your worth. These 
tears are better than the marble shaft. These grateful 
hearts, which will tell the children who sleep in the cra- 
dle the wondrous story of the times through which we 
have lived, will not forget to say that all the nation 
trusted, and all the people loved you. You shall live in 
the new America that is to be, and your best monument 
shall be your Redeemed and Free Country. You were 
with us, with kindly word of counsel, when with one 
voice we cried, " Our country shall be one and indivisi- 
ble," and when a million men, the flower of the genera- 
tion, stood side by side to battle and to die for the 



120 SERMONS ON THE 

Union : you were with us when the voice of the people 
was heard all over the world, saying, " Never more shall 
there be slave upon this soil ; hereafter all beneath the 
protecting folds of our flag shall be freemen ; " and 
when in gratitude two hundred thousand dusky braves 
sprang to arms, and fought for the honor of the country 
that dared to proclaim that they were men : you were 
with us when the weak and worn enemy flew panic- 
stricken from their last defences ; when the arch traitor 
fled the avenging hand of justice, and hid himself in the 
swamps of the South and the depths of his own crime ; 
and when the commander-in-chief of organized rebellion 
gave up his blood-stained sword to the noble chieftain 
who was the representative of order, union, and liberty, 
— and now you have gone ! Nay, nay, we will not 
believe it. You are still with us, and you will be with 
us unto the end. 

Brethren, we still trust in God. The meaning of this 
event we cannot read. We are not robbed of our faith ; 
and who shall dare deny, that Lincoln dead may yet do 
more for America and Americans, than Lincoln living ? 

In my mind's eye, I see a stout and well-built ship, 
lying a wreck upon hidden rocks. Bravely she has 
breasted the storms of a score of winters. She has 
battled with the tornadoes of Indian seas, bending her 
proud masts until the frenzied wave threw its furious 
spray upon the highest sail ; she has confronted Atlantic 
tempests ; and, when she came into port at last, was just 
enough defaced to prove the terrible character of the 
struggles from which she had come in triumph. She 
has brought her rich cargo of hope and faith, of good 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 121 

laws and liberty ; and, but yesterday, her cargo safely 
landed upon the wharf, she slipped her moorings and 
playfully unbent her sails for an hour's enjoyment. But, 
alas! there were rocks, hidden rocks, in the way, — 
rocks not laid down upon any chart except the chart of 
Satan. She struck ; and tears filled our eyes as we saw 
the noble vessel that had done her duty so well, lying 
there, the victim of a mischief that could not have been 
foreseen. So is it with our country to-day. 



11 



REV. W. R. NICHOLSON. 



AT ST. PAUL'S CHURCH. 



The Rev. Dr. Nicholson spoke as follows : — 
My Brethren, in the extraordinary circumstances in 
which we meet together this morning, I feel unwilling to 
begin our joyous Easter services without a brief word 
of introduction. I am sure you will pardon me for this 
one moment's digression from our usual course. 

Easter is the synonyme of joy and triumph, and 
Easter-day has come. How sweetly its blessed light 
has dawned upon us this morning. And yet it has 
brought with it the saddest tidings, — yes, in an im- 
portant sense, the saddest tidings, — which have ever 
concerned us since we were a people. To-day, our 
whole land is filled with sorrow and mourning ; not 
only so, but with the keenest sense of national shame 
and mortification. It is a dreadful public calamity, — 
in every point of view a dreadful public calamity ; and 
certainly it is God's call to us for a yet deeper self- 
humiliation. The instinct of my heart would be to 
observe this, the first Sunday after so grievous an afflic- 
tion, with such outward expressions of sorrow in our 
public worship as might befit a worshipping congrega- 
tion. Were it another Sunday, the irrepressible grief of 

11* (125) 



126 SERMONS. 

our hearts would require us to do so. But it is Easter, 
— the Queen Festival amongst all the glories of Gospel 
Truth. Oh, we cannot shove aside the grandeurs, the 
heavenly grandeurs, of our Saviour's resurrection ! It is 
the culmination of all saving truth ; the only light for 
our darkness, the only joy for grief, the only solace in 
our deepest troubles. Were it the festival of an earthly 
joy, instinctively we should keep silence ; but our 
Easter joys are the only medicine, as well for our na- 
tional wounds, as for the individual heart. 

If properly looked at, then ; if these services are not 
construed as an aesthetic show, a mere parade ; if we 
bear in mind that it is God's own truth which here con- 
cerns us ; surely nothing could be more appropriate, even 
for so direful a calamity, than are these Easter services. 
Let our hearts be chastened ; let us sink in self-humilia- 
tion deep and sincere ; let us lift our eyes to Jesus in 
faith strong and simple, — then, all the more because of 
our present national grievance, oh, all the more, strike 
the very highest notes of Easter joy and triumph ! 

And may the benediction of our God descend and 
brood over us, in these our precious services ! 



REV. WILLIAM HAGUE 



2 SAMUEL III: 38. 



And the King said unto his servants, Know ye not 

THAT THERE IS A PRINCE, AND A GREAT Man FALLEN THIS 

day in Israel ? 



We have come into our sanctuary to-day, with heavy 
hearts and weary step. We are " bowed down to the 
dust" beneath the weight of a calamity that has thrilled 
a nation with anguish too deep for tears. 

We are all mourners at one funeral ; not a funeral 
that leaves a vacant place in any one of our households, 
nor simply the funeral of a father, son, or brother, of a 
personal friend, champion, or protector, but of him who 
combined the interests and endearments of all these 
relations in one, and whose sudden loss a nation bewails 
as inexpressible and irreparable. 

The hand of the assassin that smote down our Presi- 
dent achieved its fiendish aim, and in that mortal stroke 
inflicted a pang that throbs in the hearts of more than 
twenty millions ; and though these all beat in unison, 
yet as the Prophet Zachariah said of Judea in a time of 
trouble, " The land mourneth, every family apart." 

(129) 



130 SERMONS ON THE 

Every one bemoans the affliction as a sorrow of his 
own. 

There is sorrow in the crowded streets ; sorrow in the 
marts of trade ; sorrow in the council-rooms of States, 
in the school-rooms of children and youth, and at every 
hearthstone of the Commonwealth : but more than that, 
there is sorrow in every solitude, even in the closet of 
prayer, "the secret place" where emotion is quickened 
by no sympathy except sympathy with God, who knoweth 
the heart's bitterness better than it knows its own. 

Never, we believe, since the death of Washington, 
did the countenance of every man, every woman, and 
every child, over the broad area of the republic, express 
a sentiment of grief so profound and keen as that which 
greets us now, whithersoever we may turn. 

We have heard of monarchs honored as benefactors, of 
kings loved as fathers ; but it is only in a free republic 
that you can ever see such signs of love and devotion as 
those which now glisten in the eyes, or quiver in the 
tones of stalwart men, of war-worn soldiers, of mirthful 
youth, of venerable matrons ; or such as rise to heaven 
in the prayers of the vast masses who kneel at their 
domestic altars in the mansions of merchant-princes, in 
the tenant-houses of poor laborers who differ from each 
other as to color and complexion, in the rough cabins of 
backwoodsmen, and in the huts of emancipated slaves. 

All these, spread abroad over the breadth of a conti- 
nent, make it one expanded "house of mourning," where 
one bereaved family are prostrate in the expression of 
a common woe ; unto all these voices the ear of God is 
open, and over all these He watches with sympathetic 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 131 

care, waiting to fulfil in the experiences of this afflicted, 
storm- tossed nation that benign promise which gleamed 
of old through the reft cloud of many a portentous 
night in the history of Israel, " Call upon me in the day 
of trouble ; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify 
me." 

That word is as true to-day, and as apposite to our 
condition as if an angel were uttering it for the first time 
in the ears of the people, as a fresh message from the 
throne of the Eternal King. We are still in the keeping 
of our fathers' God, to whom, in the fiery trials of the 
revolutionary era, Washington was wont to pray in 
forest solitudes. As the ancient Psalmist said, we say, 
" He that keepeth us shall neither slumber nor sleep." 
The assassin's dagger cannot reach Him. And though 
the deadly stroke aimed at our chief ruler hath pierced 
the nation's heart, He liveth to parry the force of the 
blow, to heal the wound, to bring good out of evil, 
strength out of weakness, life from death, to make the 
wrath of man to praise Him, and its remainder tore- 
strain. 

All the events of our history, from the beginning even 
until now, tally with the hopes which these promises 
inspire. As a faithful woman in Israel said to her des- 
ponding husband when he trembled before the manifes- 
tation of the Divine Majesty, '* If the Lord had been 
pleased to kill us, He would not have received such 
offerings at our hands, nor would He have showed us 
such things as these." 

Think of it. Can we, as a people, in this hour of 
trial, recall to memory the last four years of devastating 



132 SERMONS ON THE 

war, the superhuman malice of cunning foes acting in 
concert with the educated craft and wealth of the aristo- 
cratic powers of Europe, the era of successful treachery 
and intrigue, of victories over us on bloody battle-fields, 
the taunts of triumph like those of old Philistia's daugh- 
ters in Gath and Askelon, rehearsed and wafted back 
from beyond the sea, and all the terrible scenes of 
national agony through which we have passed, along the 
verge of an unfathomable abyss, under the chosen lead- 
ership of Abraham Lincoln, without being assured to 
the utmost depth of our heart's capacity of grateful 
feeling, that God raised him up, " made him great " 
and then, at the set moment, gave him to us as an angel 
of deliverance, in order to work out for us that " great 
salvation " which has just now become the most amaz- 
ing and hopeful spectacle of the nineteenth century in 
the sight of the whole civilized world ? 

No, never : these years are " years of his right hand," 
the remembrance of which has called forth over the rice- 
fields and cotton-fields of the emancipated South, and in 
the open streets and marts of Boston and New York 
alike, songs of praise that rolled in all the lyrical majes- 
ty of " Old Hundred," and sounded forth the joy of 
millions as in the deep thunder tones of ocean waves. 

These grand anthems, God himself extemporized for 
us ; He made the " logic of events " vocal with prophe- 
cies of our glorious future, as sure to us as any that ever 
came from Isaiah's lips, that were touched by fire from 
Heaven ; and shall we now, in this hour of sudden 
gloom, be tempted to yield for a moment to doubt or 
fear or dark forebodings, like those who adore no God 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 133 

but chance or fate, or blind, inexorable law ? Oh, no ! 
truth, love, faith, honor, gratitude forbid it. 

I know how hard it is, at times, for the stricken 
heart, under the shock of terrible and scathing bereave- 
ment, to school itself (I will not say into submission, or 
resignation, for these are, comparatively, tame words) 
into joyous, hopeful, filial trust. 

I know what extraordinary and mighty reasons there 
are to tempt us, in spite of all the signs of wise design 
and overruling Providence in the past, to treat this 
event as being too ill-timed to furnish occasion for the 
exercise of these Christian graces, or to be regarded as 
anything else than a bad chance- stroke, full of dis- 
astrous portent to the fortunes of our country. 

I know how prone are the shocked sensibilities of 
some to arouse the fear of strange evils that throw their 
shadows before, (as a patriotic woman and mother 
expressed it yesterday,) of a Reign of Terror like that 
which racked revolutionary France in the days of Robes- 
pierre. 

I know what a dreadful depression of spirit is likely 
to be produced by the contrast between the tone of the 
last public service in this sanctuary and the tone of the 
present ; between the glowing scene of Thursday, when 
a Fast was turned into a Festival by that last triumph 
of our arms, which seemed like a new proclamation 
from the Supreme Governor of the world, and the more 
than funereal gloom that overcasts our lurid sky at this 
hour, and turns the greatest Festival of Christendom 
into a Fast, to the sickened heart of Christian patriot- 
ism. I know this, and I feel the oppressiveness of the 
murky air laden with rumors of coming trouble. 
12 



134 SERMONS ON THE 

In view of all these things of sad significance I know- 
how hard it is for some to interpret an event, that seems 
so mysteriously ill-timed, into harmony with a cheerful, 
hopeful view of those kind designs and wise forecastings 
of Divine Providence that insure our national welfare, 
and our progress in a bright national career of honor, 
glory, strength, freedom, and prosperity. 

Nevertheless, I know at the same time what are the 
rocky grounds of our trust, and adopt the words of a 
French statesman, explanatory of his own conduct, amid 
the moral earthquake in his own country in 1848 : " I 
believe in God ! " 

All these portents of evil are but as foil to the 
diamond. 

I welcome the hope with which Moses inspired Israel 
when he said " God made him to suck honey out of the 
rock, and oil out of the flint." 

I remember the machinations of assassins against the 
life of the President that were strangely baffled in those 
times when success would have been fatal, and turned the 
trembling scale of national destiny in favor of armed trea- 
son with a force that would have mocked resistance ; when 
an announcement like that which flashed over the wires 
yesterday would have been the signal for the rallying of 
treacherous cabals, not only in the capital, but through- 
out all the North, from the St. Lawrence to the Potomac, 
and from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. 

In those days of disaster, despondency, and weakness, 
the faith of the people in our President was our great 
bond of union, and the bulwark of our safety against 
the complicated plots of open and secret foes. But now 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 135 

he is gone ; and who fears them now ? Think of it : 
who fears them now, when the rebel power is crushed, 
its fortresses and cities and capital captured, its govern- 
ment dissolved, and its armies flying like chaff before the 
storm ? 

Surely, I know the answer that your hearts indite. 
What a difference between now and then ! What a 
cheerful light gleams out from this comparison of the 
past and the present, spanning the dense cloud of our 
sorrow with the bow of promise, the sign of a covenant 
of hope, well ordered in all things and sure ! 

The death of those we love, honor, and trust, at the 
first sight, never seems well-timed ; the parting pang is 
ever painful ; — 

" The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear ; 
The blood will follow where the knife is driven" ; 

the tear will gush from the depths of nature where 
the cherished ties of life are broken : but there is a time 
of separation set, and that time is adjusted to a perfect 
harmony with those far-reaching purposes of our 
Heavenly Father, which, as Jesus teaches in the Sermon 
on the Mount, take within their scope the fall of a 
sparrow as well as the fall of an empire. 

O, it is a consoling truth, ' k Our times are in his 
hand"; 

" The voice that rolls the stars along 
Speaks all the promises." 

And yet, in the sweep of a great calamity like this 
which we now bewail, where the immediate cause is not 



136 SERMONS ON THE 

some mighty agency of nature, but a mere play of 
human passion, or a mere freak of some perverse human 
will, or some untoward thing which it was within a 
man's power to have avoided, the troubled mind will 
often stagger, through unbelief in providence, and lose 
sight altogether of a divine, overruling wisdom. 

In the view of many, the rough edge of the evil 
would have been taken off, and the sense of fitness 
would have been less shocked, if the President had 
died by disease, or died in battle. In that case, the 
sorrowing heart more readily bows before the inevitable, 
more devoutly acknowledges the majesty of the Supreme 
Arbiter of destiny. But death by the hand of an 
assassin that might have been so easily arrested, or 
death following a certain step that might have been so 
easily omitted, seems like a malign agent jarring against 
the order of the universe, trampling God's law in per- 
verse wantonness, provoking exasperation rather than 
submission. 

But then it must be remembered that this is a mere 
seeming. 

For God's comprehensive purposes are realized by 
the free actions of men, and devils too. as well as by 
the blind forces of material nature. The moral element 
of free will may have ample play, without being able to 
baffle the divine will any more than does the planet 
which is never allowed to fly one hair's breadth from its 
appointed track. 

The grandest programmes of inspired prophecy have 
often been pivoted upon some trifling act of man which 
might have been easily avoided. The conquest of Old 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 137 

Babylon, the oppressor of Israel, was predicted by- 
Isaiah two centuries before the birth of the conqueror, 
whom God called by name, and said to Cyrus, " I have 
guided thee, though thou hast not known me." Not only 
was the event announced, but the funeral dirge of the 
empire was written by the Hebrew seer, and the night- 
scene of the overthrow described with as much of 
graphical minuteness as if the prophet had lived to muse 
amid the ruins of the imperial city. At the set time 
her fall shook the world; and yet one obscure man 
might have prevented it. A single hand of an humble 
official might have baffled the Persian and his army, if 
the guard at the brazen gate had attended to his duty, 
and moved the bolt to its place. 

So, too, within the memory of living men, the grand 
crisis of European history turned upon the action of a 
single will, — and that, too, the will of a man whose 
name we should never have cared to mention but for 
that one inexplicable decision. When General Blucher, 
with his Prussians, appeared on the field of Waterloo, 
to join the Duke of Wellington, and turn the tide of 
battle, Napoleon was still confident of victory ; because, 
as he said, " General Grouchy must he behind them." 
In vain did he reason out the case ; in vain did he 
watch. "Why does not Grouchy come?" He might 
have come ; he had gained the bridge at Wavre ; the 
way was open to him ; but he did not come. Instead 
of marching forward with his counterpoise to Blucher' s 
force, he decided to wait for news from the field ; and 
that decision, which even the sagacity ■ of Napoleon 
could not anticipate as being within the bounds of 
12* 



138 SERMONS ON THE 

probability, gave the day to England, and brought 
down the empire that had ruled the continent. 

All this is after the manner of God in the evolutions 
of history ; and therefore, let none of us, O friends, in 
our melancholy musing upon the loss which we mourn 
as the strangest catastrophe of our times, interpret the 
fatal effect of the assassin's stroke as a sign that the 
fortunes of our country are abandoned of Heaven, or 
regard the deadly play of perverse will and maddened 
passion, in the removal of the nation's ruler, as a sort 
of proof that it was, in the view of right reason, an ill- 
timed event, and that the overruling wisdom of God is 
no longer guiding our affairs to a happy and glorious 
consummation. 

Rather, O friends, amid the sorrows of the hour, 
the stormy excitements of the public mind, and the 
extraordinary combination of events racking the land 
like the vibrations of an earthquake, let our weakness 
grasp the hand of Omnipotence, like the royal Psalmist 
of old, who, when his timid advisers said to him, " Flee 
like a bird to your mountain, for the wicked make ready 
their arrow upon the string, and righteousness amounts 
to nothing," answered them in those living words of 
religious trust, " The Lord's throne is in the heavens ; 
his eyes try the children of men ; he will rain upon the 
wicked, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest : this 
shall be the portion of their cup ; the righteous Lord, 
loveth righteousness, and his countenance doth behold 
the upright." 

It is to us a* fact of great significance that this nation 
has a history, which the leading minds of the Old World, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 139 

in courts, camps, and universities, are studying now as 
never before. Hitherto they have never believed that 
our republican government had enough of coherent 
strength to withstand the shocks of a great rebellion. 
Its strongest bonds have seemed to them but as flaxen 
cords, that " sunder at touch of fire." The poor emi- 
grant, who has purchased a voyage across the Atlantic 
with the hard earnings of many years, and come to 
build up the fortunes of his family on these shores, could 
see where our great strength lay; but the princes, 
dukes, earls, the educated statesmen and diplomatists 
could not see it. Nevertheless, He who raised Abraham 
Lincoln from the farm and forest to the chair of state, 
and called him to exchange the woodman's axe for the 
sceptre of authority, has revealed to them, through him, 
new ideas of the nature of real power. They have seen 
his sterling character put into the crucible to be brought 
forth like gold from the refining flame, and they have 
learned, through him, as the ruler of free men and the 
representative of free labor, how great a work this nation 
has to do. The story of his life is the guarantee of our 
national immortality. And thus to-day, our fathers' 
God, who hath wrought out our national emancipation 
by this " chosen instrumentality," teaches them as well 
as us, that his resources are not stinted, that " his arm 
is not shortened that it cannot save " ; and that, as the 
exiled prophet of Patmos said, He is " Alpha and 
Omega, the First and the Last"; the beginning is the 
surety of the end. 

And let it be observed in this connection, that the 
event which engrosses the nation's thought at this hour 



140 SERMONS ON THE 

will ever stand forth as a salient point of American his- 
tory. Its full effect, no human being can fGretell ; but 
it will surely accelerate the progress of the republic 
upon its new career' of a free, Christian civilization. 
More than ever the millions of our land, whether of 
Caucasian or- African, of Teutonic or Celtic blood, are 
fused into one vital nationality. " The day of the Lord 
hasteth greatly," said the prophet Zephaniah to the 
people of his time. Even the workers of mischief help 
it forward, though not after the manner they intend. 
Since the death of Julius Caesar in the Roman senate- 
house, no assassination of a public man has exerted an 
influence so profound and far-reaching. The murder of 
Caesar was perpetrated in the name of freedom ; but it 
established imperialism, and brought forth a race of 
emperors, most of whom were unsurpassed as monsters 
of wickedness ; the assassination of our President has 
been accomplished in the interest of the slave-power; 
but will it subserve, think you, the behest of that base, 
barbarous despotism? No. Although the joy of victory 
may have disposed the hearts of many to favor the invi- 
tation extended to some of the rebel champions to take 
their places in the halls of legislation as the architects of 
reconstruction, the loyal masses of the people will be 
more wary now, and will not rest until the last fibre in 
the heart of the slave-power shall have been crushed, 
and its last " vital spark" of infernal flame extinguished. 
True, indeed, our enemies still exult, — Gath and 
Askelon are yet merry ; they rejoice in their secret 
cabals, in their haunts of violence, in their guerilla dens, 
in their resorts of revelry and song. They say Abra- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 141 

ham Lincoln is dead, " Aha, so would we have it." 
But we believe in the resurrection, — yea, more; we 
believe that Abraham Lincoln " still lives," that he is 
" marching on," and time will soon teach them " What 
this rising from the dead doth mean." Time shall soon 
furnish a fresh commentary, a new unfolding of the far- 
reaching sense of that saying which Jesus uttered on the 
first day of the first " passion-week," in the year 33 : 
" Verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall 
into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, 
it bringeth forth much fruit." The world will see this 
truth realized in our history. " By wicked hands " the 
President " hath been slain ; " but the harvest of moral 
fruitage from his death will be the garnered legacy of the 
nation through the ages to come. The dark Saturday 
of the Passion-week of 1865 will be the harbinger of a 
brighter day, " whose sun shall no more go down." 

As we trace the hand of God in history, it is a source 
of comfort and strength to call to mind the proofs 
evolved by the last five years, that God raised up Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and "made his name great" for us ; that 
the singular combination and balance of forces that dis- 
tinguished his character was a special gift to this nation 
for its " time of need ;" and the cheering truth that 
gleams forth from this retrospect, inspiring fresh hope 
touching the veiled future is, that there was the same 
divine wisdom in the withdrawal of the gift that there 
was in its bestowal. 

Over the lifeless form of our murdered leader, there- 
fore, let it be ours to worship and adore, in the spirit of 
the afflicted patriarch, " the greatest of all the men of 



142 SERMONS. 

the East" ; who, as he sat in sorrow amid the ravages of 
his fields, the desolations of his home and the corpses of 
his children, exclaimed in those memorable words, more 
than ever weighty with an emphasis of meaning for us 
to-day, " the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, 
blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Shall we, as a favored people, acknowledge the great- 
ness of the gift, the munificence of the giver, and then 
fail to see and acknowledge the wisdom that hath deter- 
mined the time of its continuance ? Thanks be to God, 
that the President lived to see the rebel power broken 
by the surrender of its general-in-chief, and to walk the 
streets of its capitol. Thanks be to God, that he lived 
to see the close of the day that witnessed the restoration 
of our insulted flag over the ruins of Fort Sumter by the 
same hand that had unfurled it there, amid many prayers, 
in an hour of peril, and then had withdrawn it without 
dishonor ! Thanks be to God, that the last announce- 
ment of the President to the nation that he loved more 
than life was, that he was drafting a proclamation of 
national thanksgiving, calling upon all to unite in 
anthems of praise unto Him who hath given us the vic- 
tory. That call a grateful people will answer in due 
time ; and in the anthems of that festival he will join in 
concert with the heavenly choirs that hailed the advent 
of our Messiah over the plains of Bethlehem, when they 
sang: " Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and 

GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN ! " 



REV. E. B. WEBB 



ISAIAH XXI: 11, 12. 



He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, -what of the 
Night ? Watchman, what of the Night ? 

The Watchman said, The Morning cometh, and also 
the Night. 



These words seem to me strikingly appropriate to 
our present circumstances. Last Sabbath morning 
it was my privilege to place before your minds some 
reasons for thankfulness, — thankfulness to God. Then 
the streets were decked with symbols of joy ; gladness 
in welcome accents broke from every lip. Men's coun- 
tenances were bright, as if reflecting the coming of the 
morning. We clasped each other's hands with a jubilant 
pulse, and every eye answered back hope, inspiration, to 
the eye that looked into it. 

But how changed is all in a moment ! Yesterday 
morning flags were set at half-mast. Even Sumter's 
flag is but half raised. As the day advanced, 
emblems of mourning drooped from the highest win- 
dows to the sidewalk. The President is assassinated! 
Men hold their breath, and turn pale at the appalling 
words. Citizens meet, and shake hands, and part in 
13 ( 145 ) 



146 SERMONS ON THE 

silence. Words express nothing when uttered. All 
attempt to express the nation's grief is utterly 
commonplace and insignificant. An eclipse seems to 
have come upon the brilliancy of the flag, — a smile 
seems irrelevant and sacrilegious. Even the fresh, green 
grass, just coming forth to meet the return of spring 
and the singing of birds, seems to wear the shadows 
of twilight at noonday. The sun is less bright than 
before, and the very atmosphere seems to hold in it for 
the tearful eye a strange ethereal element of gloom. 
Surely " the night cometh" And as we gather here 
this morning, after an absence of only two days, how 
appalling, in this cheerful home of our religious affec- 
tions, are these wide-hung emblems of grief and anguish! 
It is manly to weep to-day. The coming of the morning, 
and also the night, are strangely mingled. 

Had death overtaken any one of our brilliant military 
leaders in the field, we should have said it was a thing 
to be expected. Had any sudden reverse in the fortunes 
of war visited one of our armies, it would have been a 
terrible grief, but still a kind of calamity to which we 
have become accustomed. Had the President fallen by 
a chance shot in Richmond, or by the hand of some 
lurking assassin, as he passed the fortifications through 
which our hearts did not consent to his going, we should 
but have realized some of our transient forebodings. But 
after his safe return, and the triumph of our arms, which 
he took so much pleasure in telegraphing to the people, 
we had almost dismissed from our minds any fears for 
the safety of his life. And hence the telegram an- 
nouncing the death of the President at such a time, in 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 147 

such a way, falls upon us like a crash of thunder from 
an unclouded sky. 

Wearied with the duties of his high position, and the 
persistent annoyance of petty office-seekers, and unwil- 
ling to disappoint the people even in their unreasonable 
expectations, he sought an hour's recreation in the 
theatre. And what a horrible tragedy ! The actor, 
having thoroughly prepared his part, and being often 
defeated in one way and another from the fiendish 
acting of it, finds his opportunity at last. With the 
stealthy step of a base, brutal coward, with a damning 
lie on his tongue, and the heart of a demon in his breast, 
he approaches the generous, unsuspecting man in the 
rear of his seat, and, aiming the fatal weapon with prac- 
tised hand at the back of his head, puts the ball directly 
through his brain, and then makes his escape through 
the screens and drapery and doors with which his calling 
had made him acquainted. There are no last words for 
wife or children, — no word for the people's heart to 
which he always spoke, — no parting counsel for a 
bereaved and almost bewildered nation. The hand 
that signed the emancipation 'proclamation hangs help- 
less in death : the mind which had borne so evenly the 
tremendous strain of four unparalleled years is hurled 
from its throne : the great, good, magnanimous heart is 
stilled : those generous lips which have spoken mercy so 
often, and would perhaps, like the martyred Stephen's, 
have said in their last articulate speech, " Lord, lay not 
this sin to their charge," are sealed forever. The nation 
has lost a father ; the human race a sincere, devoted, 
and able leader ! 



148 SERMONS ON THE 

I have had no time to analyze the character, or choose 
out words to express our sense of the worth of the late 
Abraham Lincoln. But I may employ, with your appro- 
bation I am sure, the words used by Daniel Webster 
concerning Zachary Taylor : "He has left on the minds 
of the country a strong impression ; first, of his absolute 
honesty and integrity of character ; next, of his sound, 
practical good sense ; and, lastly, of the mildness, kind- 
ness, and friendliness of his temper towards all his 
countrymen." 

Yes, " towards all his countrymen." He was, on the 
very day of his untimely death, exerting all the kindness 
of his unselfish nature, and prepared, it is believed, to 
peril all his great popularity in inaugurating a policy 
most lenient, most forgiving towards those who had for- 
feited everything except the right to be hung. They 
have put aside their friend. They have murdered the 
new-born mercy which waited to bless them. No man 
could if he w^uld, and no man was disposed to do so 
much for them as Abraham Lincoln. 

And how the loyal people confided in him ; how im- 
plicitly the common people trusted him ! The world 
has scarcely seen the like. He came to the chair 
of the chief magistrate from the rough experience of 
frontier life. He owed his election, and the favor with 
which he was received, to the belief in the minds of 
the people, that he was an honest man. 

And did he disappoint that confidence ? Did he show 
himself unworthy? Did he ever incur the suspicion of 
dishonesty, or corruption ? Or did he ever swerve from 
what he conceived to be the path of duty to win popular 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 149 

applause ? Never. On the other hand, so impartial 
was he in selecting men from all parties to fill the high 
offices of government, so artless was he in all that he 
did, so transparent were his deeds, and his motives, that 
by a popular vote scarcely paralleled, the people called 
him a second time to guide the nation for another four 
years. He knew nothing of tricks, or double dealing, 
or party shifts, or crooked policies. He was a sincere, 
impartial, straightforward, honest man. And the people 
saw it and felt it, and were glad of an opportunity to 
honor him with an overwhelming repetition of their well 
placed confidence. What a noble example is he to all 
young men looking to office, or popular regard. With 
no military reputation, with no brilliant oratory, with no 
winning grace of manners, he was the foremost man for 
the highest office in the gift of a groat, free, and intelli- 
gent people, once and again because he was a man of 
absolute honesty and integrity of character. 

And besides these unselfish, impartial, upright ele- 
ments of character, there was a masterful common-sense, 
a genial mother-wit, and a practical statesmanship, 
which showed themselves in some of the most compact 
specimens of argument, happy avoidances of difficulty, 
and a thorough apprehension of popular instincts and 
judgments. 

He was unpolished in style, but he was profound in 
thought. He was pithy in his sentences, but original 
and patient in investigation : rough on the exterior but 
a jewel within, — 

" Rich in saving common- sense." 
13* 



150 SERMONS ON THE 

How much we owe to his unambitious example ; how 
much to his far-reaching discernment ; how much to 
his good-natured hearing of all sides ; how much to 
his steady calm judgment which held the scales, in the 
fury and gusts of the storm, as equally poised as if in the 
atmosphere of peace and calm; how much to his great 
forbearance under stinging reproach ; how much to his 
knowledge of, and unwavering confidence in the people 
and the people's cause, God knows, but we know not as 
yet. May the day never come when by bitter contrast 
we shall learn how wise and safe was the confidence 
which we reposed in him. 

This nation mourns to-day as it never mourned before. 
The statesmen of the land had learned to trust him in 
the greatest exigencies ; the impatient were restrained 
by his moderation; the immovable and morose were 
moved and almost brought into time by his steady, sym- 
pathetic step forward ; the one-eyed were made ashamed 
of their ignorance by an hour in his society ; the revenge- 
ful learned magnanimity from his deeds. The soldiers 
loved him, and the soldier's mother loved him, and con- 
fided in him. The negroes loved him ; oh how they will 
mourn for him ! Moses was not allowed to lead the 
children of Israel into the land of peace and plenty, 
neither was he allowed himself to enter it, but only to 
survey its broad prospect from Pisgah's top. And so 
their deliverer and ours is only permitted to come to 
the border, and in these last few days catch pleasing 
glimpses of the glorious, opening future. And, as when 
Moses died, his eye not dim and his natural force not 
abated, there was mourning throughout all the camp till 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 151 

the plain of Moab resounded with the cry of sires and 
sons, mothers and maidens, so now there will be mourn- 
ing in the camp, and mourning on the prairies, and far 
away over the mountains ; but nowhere keener anguish 
and disappointment than among the sable hosts whom 
his noble heart and hand has freed. All men uncon- 
sciously speak of him as our beloved President. And 
the hand of the assassin has embalmed him with all his 
virtues and greatness, and made him sacred and sublime 
in our fond, loving hearts, and in the heart of the world 
forever. 

Were I to select some one thing by which to charac- 
terize Abraham Lincoln, I should name his profound 
apprehension and appreciation of the popular instinct ; 
that instinct which is true to the right as the needle to 
the pole, in all storms, and on every sea. He believed in 
God ; he believed God was to be recognized in this war. 
He believed that the set of the loyal masses, — the deep, 
silent current, which bears on events is in the line of 
God's advance. And, thus believing, he governed himself 
by his apprehension of the people, and of God as mani- 
fest in their silent set or drift. As the philosopher 
learns the plans of God from an unprejudiced study of 
nature, so he learned the purposes of God from the 
instincts of the people. As the naturalist discovers from 
the structure of the animal what its mode of life and 
habits must be, so he saw from the essential peculiarities 
of our government whither our future must tend. He 
did not mean to be ahead of the popular feeling, for then 
there would be a re-action against his policy. He did 
not mean to be much behind it, for then some other agent 



152 SERMONS ON THE 

might be sought through which to give it expression. 
And so regarding the voice of the loyal people in this 
great crisis of the republic as the voice of God, he kept 
his ear open and his eye attent, and marshalled his policy 
not quite abreast of the divinely led masses. He sought 
not to control an age thus moved and inspired, but to be 
controlled by it. 

Herein was his wisdom ; herein his greatness ; herein 
his power. This was the secret of his success, the source 
of that light which, in all coming time, shall gild with 
unfading splendor the name of Abraham Lincoln. 

As the Netherlands mourned for William, Prince of 
Orange, as France mourned for Henry IV., "we have 
lost our father, — we have lost our father!" so America 
mourns to-day. 

" Such was he, his work is done ; 

But while the races of mankind endure, 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal, seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ; 

Till in all lands and thro' all human story, 

The path of duty be the way to glory. 

But speak no more of his renown, 

Lay your earthly fancies down ; 

And in the vast cathedral leave him, 

God accept him, Christ receive him." 

1. And now, my friends, what are the lessons of this 
great calamity ? First of all, submission. God reigns ; 
we are absolutely dependent and sinful. The Emperor 
Mauritius seeing all his children slain before his face at 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 153 

the command of the bloody tyrant, and usurper, Phocas, 
himself expecting the next stroke, exclaimed aloud, in 
the words of David : " Righteous art thou, O Lord, and 
upright are thy judgments." This event takes us by 
surprise, but the origin, maturity, and perpetration of 
this awful crime was all under th'e sleepless eye of God. 
For reasons which we cannot fathom now, nor find, He 
has permitted it. Perhaps when this day, the 14th of 
April, forever marked in our calendar ; marked by the 
humbling of the flag at Sumter ; marked by the exaltation 
of the flag four years after, — perhaps, when the 14th of 
April comes round four years hence, we shall know more 
of God's designs in permitting this foul murder of our 
beloved President. There is ONE whom the hand of vio- 
lence cannot reach ; and He has not led us thus far to 
desert and destroy us now. Meanwhile, as becomes us, 
let us bow our heads in meek submission to the divine 
will. Surely his footsteps are in the great deep ; his 
designs are hidden from us in the dark : but let us trust 
him ; ret us cleave unto him. Submitting penitently 
to the rod of affliction, let us put our hand in his, and 
say, Father lead, Father spare and bless. 

2. A second lesson is this : Execute justice in the land. 
What is the foundation of our confidence in God ? Is 
it not that he will do right ? Is it not what David says, 
over and over again, in all his trials, — justice and 
judgment are the habitation of his throne ? And just 
these — justice and judgment — are the foundation of 
every throne, and of every government. I spoke on 
Thursday, as far as it was appropriate to my theme, of 
the tremendous mistake and folly and sin, for the 



154 SERMONS ON THE 

people of a great nation to think that they can neglect 
or violate the laws of God with impunity. Just here 
has been our danger. There has been a miserable, 
morbid, bastard philanthropy, which, if it did not make 
the murderer's couch a bed of flowers, and set his table 
with butter and honey, made him an object of sympathy, 
and, after a while, of executive clemency. We are weak 
in our sense of justice. Why, how long is it since a 
man was pursued in the streets of Washington, and, 
though begging for his life, shot to mutilation ? He was 
guilty of a foul crime ? Yes. But did that give the 
injured man a right to murder him ? Are there no 
courts, no ministers of justice in the land ? But the 
murderer was acquitted, with applause in the court-room. 
Only this very spring, a young woman shot one of the 
clerks dead in the hall of the Treasury-building. To be 
sure, she said that he had broken his vow to marry her. 
And when I was in Washington, a few weeks since, it was 
confidently expected that she too would be acquitted. 
And here m Massachusetts, not to speak of other States 
now, where the punishment of murder is death, the 
guilty wretch, who could brood over his infernal plan for 
weeks, and finally, after several attempts on the same 
day, execute it upon an innocent, unsuspecting young 
man, and all for the sake of a few hundreds, or, at the 
most, thousands of dollars, is allowed to live, and become 
an object of sympathy. To shield his forfeited life 
imperils that of every young man who stands behind a 
counter in Massachusetts. Living, he is an encourage- 
ment to all persons like-minded to do likewise. Yea, 
saith the Governor, ye shall not surely die. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 155 

And so in regard to the leaders of this infernal 
rebellion; the feeling was gaining ground here to let 
them off really without penalty. They are our breth- 
ren, it is said. Then they have added fratricide to 
the enormity of their other crimes, and are unspeakably 
the more guilty. 

The punishment which a nation inflicts on crime is 
the nation's estimate of the evil and guilt of that crime. 
Let these men go, and we have said practically that 
treason is merely a difference of political opinion. 

I do not criticise the parole which was granted, though, 
for the life of me, I cannot see one shadow of reason for 
expecting it will be kept by men who have broken their 
most solemn and deliberate oath to the same government. 
It was not kept by the rebels who took it at Vicksburg. 
Nor will I criticise, for I cannot understand, the policy 
which allows General Lee to commend his captured 
army for " devotion to country," and " duty faithfully 
performed." But I considered the manner in which 
the parole was indorsed and interpreted as practically 
insuring a pardon; and to pardon them is a violation 
of my instincts, as it is of the laws of the land, and 
of the laws of God. I believe in the exercise of 
magnanimity; but mercy to those leaders is eternal 
cruelty to this nation ; is an unmitigated, unmea- 
sured curse to unborn generations ! It is a wrong 
against which every fallen soldier in his grave, 
from Pennsylvania to Texas, utters an indignant and 
unsilenced rebuke. Because of this mawkish leniency, 
four years ago, treason stalked in the streets, and 
boasted defiance in the halls of the Capitol ; secession 



156 SERMONS ON THE 

organized unmolested, and captured our neglected forts 
and starving garrisons. Because of a drivelling, mor- 
bid, perverted sense of justice, the enemy of the gov- 
ernment has been permitted to go at large, under the 
shadow of the Capitol, all through this war. God only 
knows how much we have suffered for the lack of jus- 
tice. And now to restore these leaders seems like 
moral insanity. Better than this, give us back the 
stern, inflexible indignation of the old Puritan, and the 
lex talionis of the Hebrew Lawgiver. Our consciences 
are debauched, our instincts confounded, our laws set 
aside, by this indorsement of a blind, passionate phi- 
lanthropy. 

Theodore Parker has a passage in his work on reli- 
gion, in which he gathers into heaven the debauchee,* 
the swarthy Indian, the imbruted Calmuck, and the 
grim-faced savage, with his hands still red and reeking 
with the blood of his slaughtered human victims. And 
the idea, to me, of placing the leaders of this diabolical 
rebellion in a position where they might come again 
red-handed into the councils of the nation, is equally 
revolting and sacrilegious. It makes me shudder. 
And yet I think there was an indecent leniency begin- 
ning to manifest itself towards them, which would have 
allowed to these men, by and by, votes and honors 
and lionizing. The soldiers did not relish this pros- 
pect. They are not to be deceived by the misapplica- 
tion of the term magnanimity to an act that turns loose 
into the bosom of society the men who systematically 
murdered our prisoners by starvation, and again and 
again shot prisoners of war after they had surrendered, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 157 

— shot gallant officers, even in these last battles, after 
being told that they were mortally wounded, and strung 
up Union men in North Carolina because they had 
enlisted in the federal army. 

And now we see and feel just as the soldiers do. The 
spirit that shot down our men on the way to the capital, 
the spirit that shot Ellsworth at Alexandria, the spirit 
that organized treachery, treason, and rebellion, the 
spirit that armed those leaders to strike at the life of 
the government, is the same hell-born spirit that das- 
tardly takes the life of our beloved President, — is the 
same atrocious spirit that seeks the bed-chamber of a 
sick and helpless man, and cuts his throat, and strikes 
the murderous dirk at the heart of every attendant. 
We see its malignant, fiendish nature now ! 

And what shall be done with these secessionists, if we 
succeed in arresting them before they get out of the 
country, with the blood of the President, and of the 
Minister of State on their hands ? Pity them as insane ? 
parole them as prisoners of war ? Doubtless, like the 
St. Albans raiders, they have their commission from 
Richmond ! Does this make your blood boil ? is this too 
shocking to suppose ? Well : shall we hang them, — hang 
the less guilty, and let the more guilty go free ? hang the 
miserable, worthless hirelings, and let the principals 
and chiefs live ? To do that is to arm men, and goad 
them to take vengeance into their own hands. The 
instinctive justice of the human conscience must be 
satisfied by the action of government, or it will have 
private revenge. There is a consciousness of right in 
the masses, that will not be tampered with, in such a 
14 



158 SERMONS ON THE 

time as this. Not the branches of this accursed tree, 
but the trunk and the roots must be exterminated from 
the land. Hear me, patriots, sires of murdered sons, 
weeping wives and orphans, — I say exterminated ! 
" Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a mur- 
derer, and ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of 
him that is fled, that he come again to dwell in the 
land ; for blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot 
be cleansed but by the blood of him that shed it." 
And when David died, he charged Solomon to fulfil this 
divine command in regard to Joab and Shimei, who had 
been too strong for him during his life. 

3. One thing more : Let us face the future, and all 
the solemn responsibilities of these uncertain hours with 
courage. We have God on the throne that no violence 
can reach, — the God who has always been with us. 
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art 
thou disquieted in me ? Hope thou in God, for I shall 
yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and 
my God." 

And then, such is the happy structure of our govern- 
ment that no assassination can arrest its wheels. A 
terrible calamity has overtaken us, but it will only the 
more exhibit the inherent vitality of our institutions, 
and the greater strength of the people. 

Andrew Johnson, who now becomes the chief magis- 
trate, by the mysterious providence of God, is unques- 
tionably an able man. He has been much in public 
life, and never failed — except in his speech on inaugu- 
ration day — to meet the exigencies of his position. 
Besides, he has had a schooling in Tennessee which 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 159 

may have prepared him to lead at this very time. 
When I was in Washington, four years ago, I heard 
much in his praise. He told the secessionists, who 
were just then leaving their seats in the Senate to 
inaugurate the rebellion, — told them to their faces, for 
substance, — " were I President of the United States, I 
would arrest you as traitors, and try you as traitors, and 
convict you as traitors, and hang you as traitors." And 
judging from the speech which he made at Washington 
after the news of the fall of Richmond, he has not 
changed his mind. 

We want no revenge : we will wait the forms and 
processes of law. We want justice tempered with 
mercy. We want the leaders punished, but the masses 
pardoned. Let us confide in him as our President. 
And do you make crime odious ; disfranchise every 
man who has held office in the rebel government, and 
every commissioned officer in the rebel army; make 
the halter certain to the intelligent and influential, 
who are guilty of perjury and treason, and so make 
yourself a terror to him that doeth evil, and a praise to 
him that doeth good, — and we will stand by you, 
Andrew Johnson. 

Another ground of courage is, that the nation is a 
unit against rebellion to-day as it never was before. It 
is too much to hope, I suppose, that any traitor will 
have his eyes opened to see the true character of the 
awful work in which he has been engaged, though it 
seems as if such an atrocious butchery were enough to 
make him see it ; but of this be sure, that all loyal men 
are united now ; and woe be to the secessionist who 



160 SERMONS. 

does not instantly sue for mercy, or fly the country. I 
have seen them launch a great ship. The ways are 
laid, solid and secure. And then the workmen split 
away, one after another, the blocks from underneath the 
keel. Gradually the huge structure settles upon the 
slippery ways, and glides majestically into her future 
element. The two ways under our ship of state are 
justice and mercy. In the providence of God, block 
after block has been knocked away; prop after prop 
removed, till now, just ready to glide into the new 
future, she is settling all her weight upon her ways, — 
ways made slippery by the blood of the murdered 
chief magistrate, and minister : woe, ivoe, woe to him 
who puts himself in the line of her course. Infinitely 
better for him, had he been strangled at the birth. 

Be sure, this people will mourn from sea to sea : but 
be sure, also, that any provocation will bring out the 
indignant, instant, sympathetic cry from every lip, "Die, 
traitors, assassins, all; live, the republic, liberty, and 
law." 

The God of infinite justice and mercy be our helper. 
Amen. 

Note. — Preached Sunday morning, April 16, after the news 
of the assassination of President Lincoln. 



REV. R. H. NEALE. 



MATTHEW, IX: 15 



And Jesus said unto them, Can the Children of the 
Bride-chamber mourn as long as the Bridegroom is with 
them ? But the Days will come when the Bridegroom 
shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast. 



I quoted the first part of this text last Thursday, as a 
reason for turning the annual fast into a day of thanks- 
giving. They were used by the Saviour to show that it 
was not required of his disciples to mourn on joyous 
occasions, and we were then full of gladness. Sad looks 
would have been sheer hypocrisy. So universal was the 
feeling of gratitude for the recent victories of our armies, 
that it would have been inconsistent and unnatural on 
that day to have put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. It 
seemed more befitting to improve the day, as I believe it 
generally was improved, in songs of praise, and by the 
voice of melody. How little did any imagine that the 
occasion for sorrow, for appropriate fasting and universal 
weeping, was so near at hand ! 

So great was my joy on Thursday, that, as I then said, 
I did not feel in a sermon-like mood of mind, though 
religious considerations were never nearer, more vivid 

(163) 



164 SERMONS ON THE 

and sublime, than then. They appeared, however, not in 
a mere clerical form, but as they presented themselves 
to the whole community, and I wanted to throw off pro- 
fessional restraint and speak out freely, as a citizen and 
a man ; and so I went on, speaking from the heart, and 
you obviously responding with equal fulness of soul, of 
the great things the Lord had done for us ; we were 
grateful and glad, and sang praises to the God of our 
fathers, who had defeated the enemy and broken the 
spear asunder." But how soon has our joy been changed 
to sorrow ! I feel that there is a leaden weight upon 
every heart. How can I preach to-day ? It would 
seem more natural to do as did our citizens yesterday, 
when news of the dreadful tragedy first came. They 
took one another by the hand, pressed it in silence, and 
" wept the grief they could not speak." Oh, it is hard 
to think, and must I utter the unwelcome thought, that 
the President, the good President, is dead! that 
Abraham Lincoln, our Abraham Lincoln, whose name is 
fraught with so many endearing associations, is gone ! 
He has been with us during all this war ; the thought of 
him, his sagacity, his fidelity, his buoyant hope, has 
cheered us in seasons of despondency. We felt secure 
while he was at the helm, and were confident so long as 
he was not afraid. We leaned upon him as our stay 
and staff. Alas ! and is the dear man to be with us no 
more ! What familiar memories come sadly up at this 
hour! It is painful to think of pleasant things, his 
looks, his anecdotes, the way in which we called him, 
not disrespectfully, but lovingly, by his first name. He 
was one of us, a member of the family, a parent and 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 165 

brother, toward whom reverence and love were sweetly 
intermingled, — and must we part ? 

He has gone, too, at such a time ! Just as the bright 
period long looked for had come, — the war ended, 
slavery dead, the rebellion put down, the long- conflict 
over. The good President, we thought, will now have 
some rest. He will need no disguise at Baltimore, 
no military guard at Washington. He can rest upon his 
laurels, and walk the streets when and where he pleases. 
Everybody will be his friend. No one, surely, will wish 
to hurt him, he is so kind-hearted himself. When did 
he ever knowingly harm anybody ? It was a comfort to 
him, he said recently, that he had never said a word 
or done an act that was designed to inflict a wound 
upon any heart. Anger and revenge were no part of 
his nature. Like his Master, when reviled, he reviled 
not again, but committed himself to Him that judgeth 
righteously. 

But while we are oppressed with bereavement, while 
a nation mourns, and the people are in tears at their 
loss, it is consoling to think that he is safe. He is 
where no sorrow can reach him. As you have just 
sung: 

" No mortal woes 
Can reach the peaceful sleeper here, 
While angels guard his soft repose." 

He was a good man, a truly pious man : he did not 
wish to go to the theatre. The etiquette of public life 
required him, sometimes, to sacrifice his individual 
preferences ; besides, as General Grant had been adver- 



166 SERMONS ON THE 

tised to be there, and could not go, he was afraid the 
people might be disappointed. How much was this like 
Abraham Lincoln, erring, if at all, always on the side of 
kindness ! He was a man of strong religious feeling. 
How impressive was the scene at Springfield, Illinois, 
when he was about to leave home for "Washington ! He 
stood on the platform of the cars, his friends and neigh- 
bors around him, and thinking as he did of the respon- 
sibilities he was to assume, the trials and dangers that 
were before him, it was no mere formal request that 
he made, that christians would remember him in prayer. 
The same request he has often made of the different 
religious bodies that have called upon him at the Presi- 
dential mansion. 

I remember the interview which he had with the 
Christian Commission at our first meeting in Washing- 
ton. He received us cordially, and spoke warmly of the 
enterprise. " Nothing," he said, " is better for the sol- 
diers than to be followed with Christian influences," and 
seemed grateful for the privilege of giving to the cause 
his official sanction. " Whatever the government could 
do to give to our agents free access to camp and hospital 
should be done." 

In referring, on Thursday last, to the many good 
things we should be grateful for, I mentioned the re-elec- 
tion of our present noble Chief Magistrate. It was an 
occasion of gladness to the loyal people that he who 
had been raised up of God to conduct us safely 
through the wilderness had not been left like Moses to 
die upon Mount Nebo, but had crossed the Jordan and 
entered the promised land. It may seem now as if the 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 167 

congratulation was premature. I do not think so. He 
has in the highest sense entered upon the inheritance of 
true patriotism and christian hope. Gladly would we 
have honored him here on earth. We would have 
carried him in triumph through our streets. But God 
saw fit to bestow upon him a higher reward than we could 
give. A more brilliant assembly than ever was convened 
on earth shall hear his approbation pronounced, and he 
shall be crowned, not with fading laurels, but with 
immortal honor. 

It is consoling to think, also, that not only no war, 
but no political animosities shall reach him more. No 
shafts of calumny shall enter his breast. I am told that 
the war is not half over ; that the process of reconstruc- 
tion will be attended with more difficulty and excitement 
than the conflict of arms. And I confess, that, warmly 
attached to the President as I am, I still felt afraid that 
party divisions and party rancor might hereafter arise 
that should disturb his peace. Whatever else might 
happen, I wanted that there should be, in reference to 
him, only kind words and kind thoughts. Such, I doubt 
not, was the universal feeling of the loyal people. This 
wish, at least, is gratified. His name and fame are 
secure. There will be hereafter as now, and through all 
time, and amid all controversies, a unanimity of profound 
respect for the honesty, the moral integrity, the lofty 
patriotism, the well balanced mind, and the adminis- 
trative ability of Abraham Lincoln, not surpassed, if 
even equalled, by that which is paid to the memory of 
Washington. No man in the history of the nation has 
had greater responsibilities, and it will be the united 



168 SERMONS ON THE 

voice of future generations, that no public man has ever 
sustain?d them more satisfactorily. 

How will the soldiers mourn this death ! Mr. Lincoln 
was not a military man, but no officer of the government, 
no military chieftain, not even the Lieutenant-General 
himself, was more beloved by the army. The President 
often visited them in the field. He went to the hospitals, 
and was sure to take every soldier by the hand, and say 
some comforting words to him. O, how their bosoms 
will heave, and their heads bow in sadness, at news of 
his death. 

In the recent battles about Petersburg and Rich- 
mond he was near to the scene of action, and his great 
heart throbbed with joy at the successes that were 
achieved. He seemed to forget that he was President of 
the United States, in the pleasure he felt of forwarding 
telegrams to the rejoicing people. He was happy in 
making others glad. With what childlike simplicity he 
speaks of the honor the commanding general had. con- 
ferred upon him, in allowing him to tell the good news ! 
Noble hearted man ! thy disinterested patriotism and 
sublime goodness of soul shall be a treasure to this 
nation and to humanity forever. 

And the negroes. What a blow this death will be to 
them? He wrote the proclamation of their freedom, and 
enjoyed the comfort of doing it, more than all the honors 
which the nation or the world can confer. He stood 
against the combined influence of love and hatred, poli- 
tical opposition and partisan friendship, the unfaltering 
advocate of African freedom, and the stern defender of 
human rights. How those oppressed and grateful ones 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 169 

welcomed him in his recent visit to Richmond ! And 
how the good man enjoyed it ! He wished for no prouder 
ovation. Men, women, and children, poor, ragged, and 
black, met him at the wharf and attended him through 
the streets, weeping, laughing, praying, singing, shout- 
ing, and dancing for very joy. And he the happiest of 
them all. I hope the scene will be photographed. It 
will be an honor to our republic, and cause a thrill of 
pleasure in the breast of benevolence and humanity the 
world over. 

Mr. Lincoln had strong domestic attachments. His 
bosom was full of warm affection. He was so from 
boyhood. He almost worshipped, his mother. His 
young heart was filled with grief when she died. He 
was sorry, that, owing to the privations of pioneer life, 
there could be no regular religious services at her 
funeral. No church was nigh. No preacher could be 
obtained in season. But he remembered his mother's 
favorite minister in Kentucky ; and, having learned to 
write, he gladly employed his newly acquired accom- 
plishment in sending a letter to him, requesting that he 
would, if possible, come to Indiana, and perform the 
rites of religion near the burial-place of his lamented 
parent. The preacher came. Abe, as he was called, 
built a platform, and the sermon was delivered as 
desired over his mother's grave. Some natural tears 
were shed; but filial love was gratified, and the boy's 
heart was at rest. As with the boy, so it was with the 
man. Home was his delight. His wife and children 
were his choice companions. Every honor he received, 
every joy that entered his own heart, he hastened to 
15 



170 SERMONS ON THE 

share with them. No wonder, when such a husband 
and father was suddenly smitten down, his family should 
be overwhelmed by the dreadful shock. They will have 
the sympathies of the nation, and our earnest prayers 
that God will support them at this hour, and impart to 
them, in future days of grief and loneliness, the con- 
solations of our holy faith. 

In the great calamity which has befallen us in the 
death of the President, it is an occasion of devout 
gratitude that the Secretary of State has been spared. 

The nation is under great obligations to this officer, 
for the manner in which he has conducted our foreign 
relations during the perilous crisis through which the 
country has passed. He has neither involved us in 
complications with other governments, nor lowered the 
dignity of our own. He has been wisely forbearing, 
and, I doubt not, will be wisely firm. May he and his 
stricken son soon be restored to health and their 
country's service. 

The fearful tragedy which has taken from us the head 
of the nation is so recent, and our grief so deep, that we 
are scarcely prepared to speculate upon its causes, or 
probable consequences in the future. The immediate 
perpetrator of the act will doubtless be arrested, and the 
motives which led to it be fully ascertained. If found 
to be in pursuance of a conspiracy on the part of slave- 
holders and secessionists, it will be one of the most 
signal instances of folly, as well as wickedness, ever 
known in the annals of crime. No event could occur, 
which, in the indignation it has aroused, could be more 
terrible to the conquered foe. If secession had been 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 171 

compelled to capitulate before, it will now be arrested, 
condemned, and executed. If slavery had received its 
apparent death blow, the work will now be made sure. 
It will be struck to the heart, and pierced through and 
through, nor left until it is annihilated to the smallest 
fibre. If this foul assassination has been done or coun- 
tenanced by men under the bitterness of defeat, they 
will now find the cup filled to the brim with the water 
of gall. Mr. Lincoln was disposed to be lenient ; but 
if, in their malignity, they dash the cup of kindness from 
his hand, they must not complain if the contents of the 
apocalyptic vial should now be poured out upon their 
land, till it shall consume every green thing, and turn 
a third part of the waters into blood. If they smite 
down their best friend, they must take the consequences. 
We can only say, Thou art righteous, O God, who wast 
and art, and art to come, the Almighty, because thou 
hast judged thus. They have shed the blood of saints 
and of martyrs, and Thou hast given them blood to 
drink, for they are worthy ! 

I do not doubt that the Lord God Omnipotent 
reigneth, that He will bring good out of evil, and that 
this tragedy, like all other events in human history, will 
be overruled for his glory. But his judgments are a 
great deep. His way is in the sea, and his path in the 
mighty waters, and his footsteps are not known. Some 
seem to think the President was in danger of consenting 
to an unrighteous compromise, and that this was a 
reason why God, in his wise providence, permitted his 
removal. This may be so. But I had no misgivings on 
this point. With all his good nature, he was firm. 



172 SERMONS ON THE 

Wherever principle was involved, no man was ever more 
immovable. His was the wisdom from above, — first 
pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated ; 
full of mercy and good fruits ; without partiality and 
without hypocrisy. He never would have consented to 
any civil disabilities because of color. The hand that 
signed the memorable proclamation never would have 
signed any document that did not contemplate the full 
citizenship of those who have proved themselves the 
worthiest portion of the Southern people. He was kind 
and forgiving, and I love and honor him all the more for 
it. There was not a particle of hate or revenge in his 
soul ; and this is one of the glories of his character, and 
will be one of the brightest features in his enduring 
fame. In the dreaded process of reconstruction, I do 
not believe he would have been unjust to freedom, or 
have made the slightest sacrifice of principle for the sake 
of peace. In the settlement of difficulties, he would 
have been guided by truth and justice as well as mercy. 
On no occasion would he lose his temper; and this 
perfect self-control was his shield and buckler. He 
might have met representatives from the Southern people 
pleasantly, perhaps told a story or two, but there would 
have been no parley with treason, no yielding to seces- 
sion ; and the leaders of the rebellion would have been 
put down forever. 

I have confidence in his successor. President John- 
son's opinions and policy are known, and will be approved 
by the loyal people. There is now a roused but I believe 
a healthful public sentiment, which will not be satisfied 
until rebellion is exterminated and consumed, root and 
branch, and its blossoms go up as the dust. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 173 

Above all, let us have confidence in God. How won- 
derful are the ways of Providence ! Who can fail to see 
the hand of the Lord, and to stand in silent and grate- 
ful adoration, as he goes forth to the accomplishment of 
his purposes, in a way which we know not, and by 
means which seem mysterious and awful ? The assassi- 
nation of the President occurred on the day which is usu- 
ally observed in commemoration of the Saviour's death. 
The enemies of our Lord thought that by the cross 
Christianity would be destroyed. So the authors of this 
fearful tragedy thought thus to crucify and entomb our 
national life, and to crush freedom and humanity through 
that mangled form. But, my friends, to-day is the day 
of our Saviour's resurrection ; and, as Christianity gath- 
ered fresh energies in the sepulchre, and rose to new- 
ness of life, so I believe that the spirit and principles 
which have been embodied in our beloved and lament- 
ed President shall come forth from his freshly-opened 
grave with greater vigor than ever. If any are weeping 
over the tomb of freedom, or of any of those principles 
for which our soldiers have fought, and for which our 
Chief Magistrate has been called to lay down his life, let 
me say to you, Dry up your tears. Ye that are walking 
to Emmaus, silent and sad, come back to Jerusalem. 
The angel of the Lord hath appeared, though in a strange 
form, and rolled away the stone from the door of the 
sepulchre. 

The tragedy which has occurred is a most impressive 

warning of the nature and evil of sin. This assassin 

was a young man, but what a finish of depravity he 

has reached ! Reckless of a wife's bereavement, of 

15* 



174 SERMONS ON THE 

children's tears, of a nation's grief; reckless of God, 
and reckless of himself. Such recklessness is traceable 
in part to his diseased imagination. He lived on airy 
and depraved fancies. He was an actor, and craved fur 
some tragic scene. He imagined it quite theatrical, no 
doubt, to utter the words, " Sic semper tyrannis," as 
he sprang, brandishing his dagger, from the scene of 
murder. It is traceable, also, to the excitement of 
liquor ; but it all comes from sin. This is the root of the 
whole. The heart's depravity grows up sometimes in 
the form of treason, and sometimes shows itself in other 
forms, — profaneness, drunkenness, and murder; but it 
is itself the father of all evil. Whoever cherishes it in 
any form has the devil, and hell itself, in his own soul. 
Depraved passions within are sure to tear and rend their 
victim, or break forth in flames of unquenchable fire. 

Let me, in conclusion, refer to one of the most 
interesting incidents in the history of our departed 
President. At the consecration of the Soldiers' Ceme- 
tery at Gettysburg, after the eloquent address of Mr. 
Everett (alas ! that he, too, is gone), Mr. Lincoln made 
a few most impressive remarks. He said that the best 
way to honor the heroes that had fallen on that bloody 
field was to consecrate ourselves more fully to the cause 
for which they bled. There was another thought within, 
he afterwards remarked, in a private conversation ; and 
it was, that he should himself consecrate his own heart 
to God. He hoped, he said, that through divine 
assistance he had done this ; and thus had arisen in his 
bosom the sweet, precious, sublime emotions of a new 
and spiritual life. It is well, my friends, that we should 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 175 

manifest our grief under this great and oppressive 
bereavement : we cannot and ought not to restrain our 
tears. It is right that tokens of mourning should be 
hung out from every dwelling. The whole nation and 
foreign lands will unite in doing honor to the distin- 
guished dead. But no higher honor can be paid to the 
memory of Abraham Lincoln than to imitate his example 
in giving ourselves more fully to the cause in which he 
fell a martyr, and individually in prayer, and on bended 
knee, to consecrate our own heart to God. 



REV. HENRY W. FOOTE. 



ADDRESS SPOKEN AT KING'S CHAPEL, 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1865. 



We are gathered here in this solemn service, that we 
may have the last sad satisfaction of joining with a 
whole nation in paying every rite of respect and honor 
and veneration to him whose mortal part is this day 
committed to the tomb. Our hearts, so recently, alas ! 
throbbing with an exultant sense of security in the 
blessed assurance of approaching peace, have been 
quickly clothed again in the habit of anguish so famil- 
iar, but now in a sackcloth blacker than the loss of 
many battles could have brought, whose hues of mourn- 
ing must hereafter darken all our lives. Not even vic- 
tory can come with notes so triumphant as to hush the 
wail of our grief for the leader who gathered our armies 
and chose our generals, and with patient heart brought 
us to the very gates of entire triumph ; nor even can 
God's whitest angel of peace return, save with tear- 
dimmed eyes, and the disquiet of a mighty sorrow. 
But the very greatness and permanence of our emotions 
forbid us from trying to put them into speech. In this 

(1?9) 



180 SERMONS ON THE 

hour, the sob of a nation's overwhelming bereavement 
fills our ears and our hearts, and best tells the story of 
our loss. And, under the shadow and horror of a gigan- 
tic crime, we would fain learn the mysterious lesson of 
Providence in silence. "Be still, and know that I am 
God." Yet these services of sacred commemoration 
would seem prematurely closed, did we not try to gather 
up their meaning into brief and simple words. We need 
to go out from this house of prayer into an atmosphere 
of faith and prayer ; not into deeper and more hopeless 
grief. And he, — the good, the great man, whom we 
desire to honor by doing as he would have us, — could he 
open those lips forever silent, would bid us carry hence 
stronger and higher purposes with which to withstand 
the cloud of sorrow that has settled down over the land 
he loved so well. He would bid us say little of him, 
but much of the great cause. He would bid us forget 
the murderous deed by which one foul hand has brought 
darkness upon twenty million loyal hearts, and remem- 
ber only that in this place we have been uplifted, by 
communion with God's Spirit, into a truer allegiance to 
the principles of freedom and justice, of mercy and 
peace, as whose embodiment and representative he 
stood before the world. We cannot, indeed, turn thus 
aside from the contemplation of those qualities which 
made him what he was. The man stands before us, 
whichever way we turn, so identified with these great 
and uplifting themes, that, when we mention them, we 
must perforce think of Mm. He stands forever in his- 
tory their illustrious representative, giving them honor, 
and receiving honor from them. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 181 

Not here in the short space which remains for us ere 
we rise, and go in spirit with those who bear what was 
mortal of our President to his burial, — nor now, when 
we are in the very presence of death, can eulogies be 
spoken. That can be safely left for History, who will 
find time enough in succeeding generations, and room 
enough on the scanty roll of her greatest names, where 
his henceforward stands forever written. 

But, even here and now, the thought of what he did, 
or had a part in, — of what he was, — and of what he 
will be in the influence of example, is in all our hearts. 
Out of the fulness of such thoughts, let us try to gather 
up the lessons which we wish to carry hence. 

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the 
United States, will be remembered as long as the annals 
of this nation endure, as the ruler, who, under God, 
guided us, through four years of a terrible civil war, to 
the very borders of the peaceful restoration of national 
unity, under the one lawful government of the land. 
How the heart goes back (as we think of this, his 
mighty work) over all the varying anxieties and mis- 
givings, — the public calamities and the private sorrows, 
— the alternations of success and defeat, — the vast pro- 
blems of public policy, — the intricate relations with 
foreign powers, — which have rilled the years with a 
weary weight. They have been hard to carry, for us all. 
They have seemed longer to those who were in the fierce 
current and whirling eddies of the time — as who was 
not? — longer than a lifetime of peace. But he who 
was held responsible for everything which went wrong ; 
who stood in the central place of all, and held all the 
16 



182 SERMONS ON THE 

countless threads in his hand; yes, who gathered them 
all up in his heart, — with what a crushing burden have 
the years rested upon him 1 No wonder that men said, 
the other day, at Richmond, that he looked utterly worn 
out. The wonder is, how with twenty lives he could 
have endured so long. The most responsible place in 
the gift of any people it devolved upon him to fill, when 
its responsibilities were increased five hundred fold ; 
when friends were few, and hostile critics too many to 
be numbered, and all the way before us was dark with 
unknown perils. And he has filled it, through good 
report and through evil report, silencing his opponents, 
one by one, and changing them to friends, until, when 
he died, no tongue was mute to speak his praise. Has 
there ever before been a recorded instance of a man 
coming to power without experience, and almost un- 
known, guiding a nation through the shock and strain of 
a vast war, welding them continually into greater unanimi- 
ty of purpose, and gaining constantly on their respect 
and affection? In all history, he is the first example. 
It will stand written against his name, that he was the 
means, through God, of arousing a great people to a 
real national life. Look at it beforehand, and we 
should have called it impossible. There was a time — and 
not so long ago — when men doubted whether, under our 
institutions, there could be a genuine loyalty. Surely 
he was a providential man, to whom it was given to 
wake that feeling in the public heart. He has waked it, 
and kept it living, because it was in the deepest place of 
his own heart. It spoke in that call, after the fall of 
Sumter, which made the nation spring to its feet. It 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 183 

held him up, when, through the watches of that July 
night, he heard the ceaseless tramp, across the Long 
Bridge, of the army retreating from Bull-Run. And 
through many reverses since, when hope deferred made 
the heart sick, (need I name the battles and retreats 
which are written on our remembrance in characters of 
blood ?) it sustained him unfaltering. 

The people wrought in him, and he again wrought in 
the people, a sublime faith in our national ideas. And 
that was work enough for any man. However men may 
differ about the wisdom or expediency of this measure 
or of that, — and it would be strange if in such a time a 
man had not committed grave mistakes again and again, 
— none can doubt that he has done this one transcend- 
ent work of strengthening the spirit of nationality, with- 
out which all else were vain ; with which all else must 
in the end go well. This being granted, all the detail 
of questions about special acts can be let pass. It would 
be an impertinence to descend to them in this hour of 
our solemn mourning. It is enough to claim our ever- 
lasting gratitude that he has done this* work : and 
especially because this national spirit, so purified and 
deepened, has become more and more imbued with the 
ideas of justice and liberty. He, indeed, would be the 
last to claim that he led the way in this. He has the 
truer glory of having followed the popular will, and of 
having caused these ideas, already accepted by the 
people, to become a part of their fundamental law. And 
so it comes, that, wherever the word Freedom is spoken, 
there his name will be uttered with benedictions. 
Through him, the starry flag has come to shine 



184 SERMONS ON THE 

undimmed by oppression. That hapless race, who sat 
in bondage so long, have learned to recognize him as 
their great deliverer, and to lift their hands, in prayer for 
him toward heaven. They will feel that now they have 
lost their truest friend. If we carry from these funeral 
rites a quicker heart for the demands of justice, — a 
more living love of human freedom, and a steadfast pur- 
pose to do our part in the great work of re-organizing 
the society of the South on a truer basis, — we shall bear 
the best witness to the reality of our sorrow, and the 
sincerity of our affection. 

But this work, wrought on the spirit of the people and 
in our fundamental law, could never have been accom- 
plished save by such a man as he. A man of the people, 
through and through, he has had entire faith in the 
people. And this faith has been his tower of strength. 
Out of the hardships of his early training, he brought a 
heart thoroughly in sympathy with the common people. 
Add to this the qualities peculiarly developed by that 
wild, frontier life, and which were his to an eminent 
degree by natural endowment ; that strong, plain, good 
sense ; that practical shrewdness ; the power of ready 
adaptation to unforeseen emergencies : add that capa- 
city for continual growth in character, which he has 
clearly manifested, and those qualities which have been 
the very ground-work of his character ; the absolute 
honesty, the brave simplicity, the manly tenacity of pur- 
pose, the power of true and single devotion to a great 
cause, — and where, in all the records of the past, has 
ever risen one who seemed more providentially prepared 
for his gre;».: place, than he? Yet, with all this, so far 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 185 

was ho from being stern, as we are apt to think a leader 
must be, — so far from the rugged hardness of character 
which we attribute to the rude civilization where his 
boyhood and youth were spent, — that we have felt at 
times that he erred on the side of gentleness. The 
object of such contumely and violent hate as no other in 
our history has ever had to bear, it never cast even a 
shadow over his spirit. What nobleness of heart, what 
grand magnanimity, has it not required to keep 
him utterly free from words of unkindness or thoughts 
of hate, so that the words of kindly good-will toward his 
enemies, which he spoke on the last afternoon of his life, 
came out of the transparent depths of a soul into which 
no bitterness had ever entered! And so it came, that, 
more and more, the nation has felt that it could trust 
him to the uttermost, and love him to the fullest, tfere 
in our need, was a genuine man, — when " a man was 
more precious than fine gold, even a man than the 
precious gold of Ophir." Gradually all hostile tongues 
have been stilled, and those who thought him too fast 
or too slow, learned to think his judgment safe and wise. 
So, too, with that criticism of his homely Western speech, 
— his unsophisticated ways, — as beneath the dignity of 
his great office. We have learned that character is a 
jewel beyond price, — and having that, we have more 
and more learned to be grateful. 

Shall I speak of those other qualities which so 
strongly marked his character ; of that fearlessness 
which could walk composedly in the streets of Rich- 
mond with a meagre body-guard of six sailors; and 
which, in a different manifestation, has enabled him to 
16* 



186 SERMONS ON THE 

stand again and again, in the four years past, almost 
alone in unpopular solitude on that height of place 
where the cold wind of criticism blows sharp and keen ; 
or of that sublime self-forgetfulness which labored on 
for the single end of his country's welfare, which never 
sought to lay hold on the laurels of others, which mod- 
estly disclaimed his own honors ? Do not those gen- 
erous words yet ring in our ears, in which he put away 
from him whatever credit of recent triumphs it was 
sought to give him, saying that he had only been a 
spectator; that all the praise was due to the generals 
and the army? Or shall I say how his conviction of 
the right of our cause sustained him in our darkest 
hours, so that that was true of him which John Maid- 
stone said of Cromwell, " He was a strong man in the 
dark perils of war ; in the high places of the field, hope 
shone in him like a pillar of fire when it had gone out 
in the others" ? Shall I speak of that simple religious 
conviction which has manifestly been deepening in his 
heart, till it uttered itself in that Inaugural where even 
English eyes have read a sincere humility, and a true 
religious spirit ? No ! these things are too sacred to be 
touched with careless hand. In the silence of the heart 
let us meditate on them ; and pardon me that I have 
even put into words the thoughts which are the reason 
of our deepest grief to-day. 

I do not attempt to draw the portraiture of this great 
ruler whom we have lost. My heart would not let me 
do it. You do not need to hear it. He stands before 
us all, as he has stamped himself ineffaceably on the 
pure silver of the national heart, all fluent and melted 



DEATII OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 187 

in the fervid heats of this time of fiery war. Six days 
ago I listened to an earnest voice which claimed for him, 
that his name stood side by side with the highest on 
our history ; that, as one is called the Father of his 
Country, so his successor should be known hereafter as 
the Saviour of his Country. To-day the sorrow of a 
whole people gives him the name, and the mysterious 
consecration of death sets him apart forever from all 
carping tongues or differing thoughts. He belongs to 
us all, — a part of our glory ; and even in our grief we 
lift our hearts in thanksgiving that he has been ours so 
long. Nor should we let the deed of violence which 
took him from us cause us to forget still to be grateful 
that he lived long enough to see the dawn breaking into 
glorious day ; to know that his fidelity, his patience, his 
bearing of weary burdens for us all, was to reap its great 
reward ; that though, like the great leader of the chosen 
people, he has died on the very verge of the promised 
land, to his eyes, like those of Moses, it was permitted 
to see the future which the Lord would give to a 
nation chastened by suffering, and endeared to Him 
by adversity. 

Nor let us fail to join in our thought of him, as he 
would have us, all that innumerable company of wit- 
nesses, whose blood has been given for our national life. 
Our heroic dead ! from the general to the private, this 
day M'e remember them all in our solemn commemora- 
tion. In our warmest love, in our deepest prayers, they 
hold a place sacred and imperishable. That holy seal 
of martyrdom is now set on them, and on him whose 
word they obeyed. We bring hither our proud sorrow, 



188 SERMONS ON THE 

our reverent affection, that it may be consecrated by the 
Spirit of God ; and we do but repeat the voice of all 
the future when we say, " Honor, honor, honor, eternal 
honor to their names." 

But in this hour, we turn, even from the purest 
earthly fame, to the consolations which we need. For 
the greatness of the honor tells us of the greatness of 
the loss ; and we must have the faith that it is yet God's 
will. Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
that we do know, under mystery and terror, that still we 
can recognize in him a God of infinite wisdom and 
perfect love. The body may perish, but the soul lives 
forever and forever ; and He has higher ways of service 
for his faithful servant, than any ways of earth. Nor 
will He, who suffers not " one of his little ones to 
perish," let the long agony of this nation be in vain. 
He may call his workman hence ; but the work of God 
goes on, and is sure. 

The long procession of a nation in sorrow bears him 
with reverent hands to his grave and our hearts yearn 
to bring him the offerings of our love and rever- 
ence. 

That we may best remember him, we should carry a 
deeper purpose into our own lives. I hear that voice 
which spoke at Gettysburg, and the words seem 
addressed to our own hearts this hour. " The world," 
said he, " will very little note, nor long remember, what 
we say here ; but it can never forget what they did 
here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 189 

nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us ; that 
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to 
that cause for which they here gave the last full measure 
of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain ; that the nation shall, 
under God, have a new birth of freedom ; and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth." 

In a true devotion to our dear country, — the mother 
of us all, — let us, standing here, as it were, by the bier 
of our chief magistrate, consecrate ourselves anew to her 
love and service. Let us resolve to give a true support 
to him who is called to that lofty place by such an awful 
messenger. Let not the shock of our bereavement cause 
us to forget the Christian spirit which breathed six 
weeks ago in that Inaugural. 

"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with 
firmness in the right, — as God gives us to see the right, 
— let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind 
up the nation's wounds ; to care for those who shall 
have borne the battle, and for their widows and orphans. 
And with all this, let us strive after a just and lasting 
peace among ourselves, and with all nations." 

With these words of peace yet, as it were, on his lips, 
he has gone into the higher kingdom of perfect peace, 
where the weary weight of cares, borne for our sakes, is 
laid aside forever. We would not sit by his grave 
desolate in our tears ; we would be grateful that He 
whose cross is to us the sign of hope, has assured to us 



190 SERMONS. 

the promise of eternal life. And, as we look up after 
that departing presence, with the cry, " My father, my 
father ! the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof," 
it shall not be in despair, but in the spirit of perfect 
trust. 



REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON. 



EMMANUEL CHURCH. 



It being the Easter Communion, after an extended 
service, in which the liturgical and musical portions 
were very rich and solemn, the rector, Dr. Huntington, 
addressed the congregation from the chancel, substantially 
as follows : 

We have finished a week of which it seems not too 
much to say, that, in the concurrence of public glory and 
public crimes, it is without precedent or parallel in the 
human history of the world. No doubt, as these strangely 
contrasted events have been announced to us, first filling 
the land with a joy that could scarcely find moderate 
expressions at the sudden prospect of an early, success- 
ful and righteous termination to four years of bitter 
alienation and bloody strife, and then overwhelming it 
with alarm, affliction, and indignation, equally sudden 
and even more unspeakable, at that appalling act of 
infamy that has struck the civil head of the nation from 
his seat and his life together, — many of us have inquired 
within ourselves whether there is any one thought, or 

truth, or doctrine, large enough, powerful enough, and 
!7 (103) 



194 SERMONS ON THE 

reconciling enough to subdue this awful sense of discord, 
and to harmonize the terrible contradictions, under one 
benignant law of love. Is there any solid shelter, any 
holy pavilion, where we can take refuge, and find these 
distracting transactions falling into place as parts of one 
perfect plan of God? And probably many of you have 
already found a consoling answer to that question. 

The solemn path through which the holy evangelists, 
in their narratives of our Saviour's last days, and before 
he suffered, have led us, to his sacrifice, to the sealing 
of his grave, and to its miraculous opening as on this 
morning, has brought us to just that comforting and 
immortal truth, — deep enough, high enough, and wide 
enough to take in and interpret every one of these 
conflicting emotions. For there is no possible joy of 
deliverance, or jubilee of victory, where the feeling of 
both public and personal sin, and the need of a Redeemer, 
does not pursue us. Nor is there any secret heaviness, 
nor any national mourning, where the cross of Christ 
will not support us, and his resurrection from the dead 
re-assure us. Here, then, is the reconciliation. Here 
is the complete and sufficient declaration of our peace. 
Here is solid rock, be the earth never so unquiet ! 
There is nothing we have felt, as citizens or as men, 
that may not find its needed ministry in the scenes where 
we have walked and lingered, — Bethany, the Mount of 
Olives, Gethsemane, Calvary, and the broken sepulchre. 
In the most exultant emotion of triumph at a re-estab- 
lished government we have seen the Prince of Peace 
marching, with palms and hosannas, in front of the 
great procession of kings and commanders. The in- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 195 

tensest and most loyal patriotism is sanctioned by Jesus 
weeping over Jerusalem. Every bereaved household is 
solaced by going to Bethany, where Lazarus was raised, 
and by hearing the Son of Mary commend his mother 
to the beloved St. John, amidst the agonies of the 
crucifixion. 

When we lift up our hearty praises and thanksgivings, 
as we must day by day, that the God of Liberty has 
struck off the bonds from four millions of enslaved men, 
and set our whole country free from that wretched 
wrong, how can we help remembering that it is all the 
working out, at last, of his infinite mercy by Whom all 
the families of men are made of one blood, Who shed 
his own most precious blood in sacrifice for all alike, — 
the poorest and weakest and darkest as much as any, 
and whose Christian service, as our daily collect says, is 
alone " perfect freedom" ? Nay, more, we learn how to 
look on this appalling assassination, and every attendant 
enormity, — leaving retribution to divine and human 
courts, — when we hear the Crucified, who was anointed 
to be betrayed, praying for his murderers, "Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do!" When 
we turn our eyes forward into the future, with whatever 
misgivings or anxieties, who can deny or doubt an 
instant that all our best and sure hopes rest on the one 
inestimable and transcendent fact, which we are now 
commemorating, that the Blessed and Holy and Al- 
mighty Lord has so loved us as to give himself for us, 
the just for the unjust, bringing life and immortality to 
light ? Our only safety from coming evil, as a people, 
is in righteousness ; and that not of our own obtaining, 



196 SERMONS ON THE 

but obtained for us by the wonderful grace of an infinite 
and everlasting Mediator. Therefore, dear friends, we 
do and we will, to-day, joy and rejoice in Christ Jesus, 
the resurrection and the life, by whom we have received 
the atonement ; who hath broken clown the middle wall 
of partition, reconciling man with his brother man, and 
with his Father, God. For God commendeth his love 
to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for 
us. And if we are reconciled by his death, much more, 
being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 



REV. WARREN H. CUDWORTH. 



DANIEL JF.-35 



All the Inhabitants of the Earth are refuted as Noth- 
ing : and He doeth according to His Will in the Armies of 
Heaven and among the Inhabitants of the Earth; and none 
can stay His Hand or say unto Him, " What doest Thou?" 



We would have celebrated the joyous festival of 
Easter to-day. Generous hands had provided the flow- 
ers that were to adorn our altar, and tuneful voices had 
made ready the anthem that was to hail the resurrection 
of our Lord from the dead. Next to Christmas, this is 
the great feast-day of the Church ; and believers of all 
denominations are uniting to appreciate and observe it 
in a proper manner. 

But, yesterday morning, like a clap of thunder from 
clear skies, came the appalling announcement, " The 
President has been assassinated." " Impossible; it can- 
not be ! " we all exclaimed, because we felt it should not 
be, it must not be. But when it was re-affirmed, and 
the official statement, spread before our strained and 
eager eyes, forced the unwilling conviction upon us that 
it was, alas ! too true, how startling and dreadful the 
blow ! We all felt personally bereaved. About our 

(199) 



200 SERMONS ON THE 

streets the people walked with mournful faces, as though 
each one was bowed down by a personal sorrow. We 
all seemed to have lost a father, a brother, a dear bosom- 
friend. How much we loved, how much we trusted, 
how much we leaned upon him, we never knew before. 
How can we bear it ? what shall we do without him? what 
could have provoked such an atrocious crime ? what does 
it all mean ? Such were some of the questionings which 
darted through all minds, and formed the burden of 
conversation passing from lip to lip. 

We can now understand, somewhat, how the apostles 
felt when our Lord was arrested, and cruelly put to 
death. They had leaned wholly upon Him, supposing 
that it was He who should have redeemed Israel ; and 
when He was taken from them, and ignominiously 
crucified as a common malefactor, no wonder they were 
scattered, each one to his own place, leaving Him 
alone. 

The week through which we have just passed has 
not been unlike that Holy or Passion Week, which, in 
Judsea of old, was so eventful to the Saviour and his 
disciples. 

It began in triumph and rejoicing, not only because 
Richmond had fallen, but because Lee and his army 
had been compelled to surrender, prisoners of war, and 
our country was saved at last. It seemed impossible 
to express the universal exultation. Churches were 
thronged ; cannon boomed from the forts ; assemblies, 
gathered from all classes of society, were extemporized 
in hall and mart ; flags fluttered on every breeze ; 
buildings were gayly decorated with the emblems of 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 201 

rejoicing ; schools were dismissed ; stores and work- 
shops closed ; bonfires, illuminations, and fireworks 
brightened the night, and every loyal heart was full of 
happiness. But, alas 1 it ended like the week of sor- 
rows, in gloom and blood. And is it not strange that 
Good Friday was the day, of all days in the year, 
chosen by the murderer for his infamous deed ? It is 
one of those remarkable historical coincidences, which, 
whether we will or not, challenge observation and cause 
remark ; and, no doubt, could our President have spoken 
after he was shot, he would have forgiven the cowardly 
perpetrator of this inhuman act, and rounded the par- 
allel with a final and complete imitation of our Lord's 
example. 

Let us not imagine that the evil of this deplorable 
event is unmitigated and unrelieved ; for, in the worst 
condition of human society, and amid the most disastrous 
circumstances connected with human affairs, " God is 
our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, 
and though the mountains be carried into the midst of 
the sea." God maketh even the wrath of man to praise 
Him, and the remainder He restraineth. 

** All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as 
nothing ; and He doeth according to his will in the 
armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the 
earth ; and none can stay his hand, or say unto Him, 
' What doest Thou :' " 

This awful occurrence has not taken God by surprise, 
for known unto Him are all his works from the begin- 
ning of the world. 



202 SERMONS ON THE 

Death is an experience of such magnitude, that, as we 
are assured, not even a sparrow falleth to the ground 
without God's notice ; and surely an event of such tran- 
scendent moment as the brutal murder of the ruler of a 
great and free nation, in the zenith of his popularity and 
usefulness, cannot occur without the oversight of an all- 
controlling Providence. 

" The very hairs of our heads are all numbered." 
" The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, 
and He delighteth in his way." 

Let us never forget that God gave us President 
Lincoln in the first place. That He led his father to 
move across the Ohio River when he was as yet but a 
child, leaving that condition of semi-bondage in which 
all poor whites were then compelled to live in the slave 
States, and settling down where he could breathe the 
air of freedom. Let us remember the struggles, labors, 
and aspirations of his boyhood, youth, and early man- 
hood ; how he toiled, as a boatman, up and down the 
great rivers of that region ; how, axe in hand, he hewed 
his own way through the world ; how he studied, 
thought, observed, prepared himself for the bar, and 
finally entered upon his political career ; how he dis- 
tanced all competitors in the nomination for the 
presidency ; how he was elected, after the most exciting 
canvass ever known in this country ; how his life was 
preserved during the passage through Baltimore to his 
first inauguration ; how signally he has boon directed 
and sustained throughout his official career thus far, and 
how really he has not been taken from us until his work 
was done ; his enemies scattered, the rebellion put 
down, the Union restored, and the country saved. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 203 

Though dead, he yet speaketh to us, in that earnest 
request of his, for the prayers of all Christians through- 
out the land, that he might be guided and controlled of 
God. And who knows, but the Most High, how much 
he owes to the prayers of righteous men and women, 
which have been going up day and night for him, 
accordingly, ever since he entered upon the discharge 
of his duties. As a nation, we have relied too little 
upon God. Ever since the war broke out, we have 
been seeking and trying General this and General that, 
— feeling sure, at each fresh selection, that at last we 
had hit upon the right man, and he would prove our 
national deliverer. But as one after another our 
Generals have been tried and found wanting, how 
plainly has God revealed to us, that " all the inhabitants 
of the earth are reputed as nothing; and He doeth 
according to his will in the armies of heaven, and 
among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay 
his hand, or say unto him, ' What doest thou ? ' " How 
clearly and irresistibly, after every fresh disaster, has 
He led us back to himself, and taught us that vain was 
the help of man ; that " the race was not to the swift, 
nor the battle to the strong," and that we were to 
prevail over our enemies, not by might, nor by power, 
but by his blessing and favor. 

Never had nation stronger reason for reliance upon 
God than has ours. The location of our Puritan ances- 
tors here, after a vain endeavor to settle in Holland ; the 
Declaration of Independence leading to the Revolution- 
ary war, during the first years of which hardly glim- 
mered the hope of our success ; the final achievement of 



204 SERMONS ON THE 

national existence ; the adoption of the Constitution ; the 
federal Union of States, growing stronger and more 
numerous every generation, and the survival of political 
convulsions caused by the overthrow and destruction of 
powerful parties, — these prove that God had a purpose 
to accomplish in the preservation of the country, which 
not all the malice of its foes nor the folly of its mistaken 
friends could thwart. 

Who may say that that purpose is yet attained? And 
if not, who can deny that God is ordering the course of 
events so as to secure its attainment ? Let us rely upon 
Him, therefore ; assured, that, having begun a good work 
among us, he will carry it on to a successful termination. 
Was it not a signal manifestation of Divine favor, that 
the assassin was not allowed to triumph until the very 
work he would interrupt had been completed ? No 
doubt this deed had been long premeditated by more 
than one of those domestic traitors who have been toler- 
ated in our midst, and opportunities may have been sought, 
again and again, to take the lives of our honored Chief 
Magistrate, and all associated with him at the head of 
affairs. No doubt it was the hope of the miscreants, 
directly and indirectly engaged, had their nefarious 
schemes succeeded, to have thrown the administration 
into embarrassment and confusion : profiting by which 
they hoped to seize the reins of government, and have 
everything their own way. Man may propose, but God 
disposes. It was not to be. The cowardly assailant of 
the President could not even pretend to any such motive. 
He exclaims, "I am revenged!" His feelings were 
wholly personal. His act was the wilful, deliberate, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 205 

execrable crime of a hireling cutthroat and ruffian, 
unattended by a single palliating circumstance. 

He was too late to arrest the mighty current which 
this war has started in favor of universal liberty, and 
his act must tend to make that current wider, deeper 
and stronger than ever. 

Thus will God overrule what was intended to be a 
fatal blow to all our hopes and prospects, for their 
speedier fulfilment and their brighter realization. 

President Lincoln was the most prominent representa- 
tive and illustration of the great national idea upon 
which all our free institutions are founded. He was 
emphatically a man of the people. He spoke the lan- 
guage of the people. He thought and acted after the 
manner of the people ; and his assassination, at such a 
time, will lay broader and firmer the foundations of 
popular liberty in the heart of mankind, than could 
years of common life and labor. 

God may have seen that a sterner hand than his was 
needed to hold the helm of state during the next four 
years of reckoning and reconstruction. We all have 
marked how gentle and kindly he has been ; with what 
forbearance he has treated enemies ; how he has warned, 
expostulated, and entreated rebels to return to their 
allegiance ; how he has given them time for repentance, 
and foretold plainly the doom which sooner or later must 
overtake their cause. Hundreds of men whose lives 
were forfeit by the law, he has pardoned and released. 
Of all papers, the hardest for him to sign was a death- 
warrant ; and, whenever he could, consistently with his 
duty as Chief Magistrate of a great nation, he has com- 
18 



206 SERMONS ON THE • 

muted the death-penalty to labor or imprisonment. I 
have seen him at many reviews of the national troops, 
and his face always wore a genial and friendly expres- 
sion. He was approachable to all, and as courteous in 
his manner towards the private in the ranks as the 
officer on the line. The soldiers loved him. Thousands 
who voted against him at his first election voted for him 
at the second, not because their political preferences had 
changed, but because they had come to believe in the 
man ; and upon no hearts has fallen the burden of a 
heavier grief than rests upon those who have fought for 
the country he has served so well. 

His death, under God, will do as much for the cause 
he had at heart, as did his life : for all great causes need 
martyrs quite as much as they do men. If the blood of 
martyr believers is the seed of the Church, surely the 
blood of martyred patriots is the seed of the country. 
Not a few the noble souls who have risked and lost 
all during the fearful conflicts of the last four years. 
And now, as he led them in life, he leads them in death. 
They were allowed the privilege of meeting their foes in 
fair fight. He fell, the victim of unexpected butchery ; 
and, as men can never get out of their hearts and souls 
the honest indignation such a deed excites, so they will 
never dismiss from their minds the noble principles for 
whose dissemination he labored, and in defence of which 
he died. 

President Lincoln, as the victim of an assassin, will 
have vastly more influence in the future than would 
President Lincoln the successful ruler of a great people. 
His very wound will cry out against the spirit and belief 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 207 

of those who have connived at his destruction. The 
man might provoke animosity ; the martyr will com- 
mand respect. We know that, already, several of the 
leading supporters of his administration, hitherto, had 
taken issue with him on important points connected with 
reconstruction in the rebel States, the confiscation of 
property, the unconditional abolition of slavery, the ex- 
tension of the right of suffrage, and the publication of 
an act of amnesty offering pardon to everybody willing 
to renew allegiance. Hundreds of perplexing questions 
would no doubt have arisen, splitting up his former sym- 
pathisers into conflicting parties intent on compassing 
their ends, and willing, for this purpose, to separate from 
him. This was evil to come. He has been removed 
from it ; and, high above the storms it may cause to 
gather and break, his image will be treasured in every 
heart, his example be an inspiration to every life. 

He has left, in sacred trust to every person in this 
country, a legacy of invaluable principles, far more likely 
to be carried out because adherence to them has cost 
him his life. 

There is an element of reverence for the heroic dead 
in human nature, which wields constantly-increasing 
sway over human faith and action. We never know 
how great or good are the prominent men among whom 
we live ; or, if we know, we do not seem to realize it so 
keenly while they are moving in our midst, as when they 
have left us forever. So we ride past one of the stately 
churches which adorn our streets. The symmetry and 
grandeur of its proportions do not catch our eye when 
near ; but as we are borne farther and farther from it, 



208 SERMONS ON THE 

its walls and towers loom up higher and higher, its 
harmonious outlines stand out more and more boldly, it 
separates itself faster and faster from the ranges of 
common buildings around it, and becomes in the distance 
the most prominent and commanding feature of the 
view. 

Had President Lincoln lived on through the entire 
term of his office, being in our midst, and not always 
the representative of our ideus, no doubt he would often 
have failed of appreciation, had he not provoked opposi- 
tion, and some of his measures or recommendations 
would have been sharply criticised, if not severely 
censured. 

But now, as it were, he has bequeathed to us the 
principles of his administration as an inheritance bought 
and sealed with his blood, all the more sacred and bind- 
ing upon us because he no longer lives to expound and 
enforce them himself. The more they are examined, 
applied, and tested, the more they must be valued ; the 
more thoroughly and faithfully they are adhered to, the 
more highly will they be esteemed. 

God would have such principles — though obnoxious 
to a large number of the American people — brought 
into bold relief before the eyes of men ; and, in spite of 
every effort to the contrary, it has been done. Truly, 
" All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing : 
and He doetli according to his will in the armies of 
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth : and 
none can stay His hand, or say unto him, ' What doest 
thou?'" 

Let me remark, in conclusion, that the assassin's act 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 209 

shows the terrible depravity of human nature. There 
are many who call him fiend and demon, but to me he 
seems to be only a bad man. So low will human nature 
sink when left to the unrestrained control of hatred, 
selfishness, and passion ; so vile and base and brutal 
will a man become, if he is wholly bent on evil. Let us 
not deceive ourselves with words. Call the act devilish 
and infernal if you will, for it deserves all the epithets 
that depravity has forced into our language ; but let us 
not forget that once the actor was an innocent, harmless 
child, and that he has been sinking to the infamy of his 
present condition, step by step. His whole life seems to 
have been filled with flagrant violations of the moral law. 
A traitor from the beginning, without manliness enough 
to induce him to enlist in the rebel army, he has pre- 
ferred, like thousands of others, to stay at home, and 
meanly appropriate the blessings, comforts, and protec- 
tion of a country which all the time he was endeavoring 
to destroy. 

No wonder the conspirators against the life of our 
beloved President found in such a man a willing tool 
all ready for their purposes. "What he has done is only 
a practical re-affirmation of God's holy word, that "The 
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked," and should convince us that the germs of all 
possible iniquity, latent, undeveloped, it may be, are in 
all our hearts ; and we need, without exception, the 
presence and the grace of God to prevent them from 
springing into a vigorous and powerful growth. 

Finally, God has again providentially lifted the veil 
that apologists for slavery — Northern and Southern — 
18* 



210 SERMONS ON THE 

have drawn over its hideous features, and shown us just 
what spirit it is of. Thank God, the utterances from 
this desk, while I have been in it, have been uniform 
and incapable of misconstruction upon this point. A 
tree is known by its fruits. It was slavery, in the 
person of Preston S. Brooks, that made the brutal and 
cowardly attack upon Senator Sumner, but a few years 
ago, in the Senate chamber of the United States, 
supported by armed abettors, approaching him from 
behind, and beating him over the head until he fell from 
his desk, bleeding and insensible ! 

It was slavery that induced the mob of Alton, Illinois, 
to surround the printing-office of E. P. Lovejoy, on the 
7th of November, 1837, destroying not only the press 
and building, but the life of their fearless and faithful 
defender. 

It was slavery that chained the Boston court-house, 
some ten years ago, and led off its chattel in triumph 
through our streets, escorted by an irresistible military 
force. Slavery for years has controlled congressional 
action, and forced even Presidents into compliance with 
its wishes. 

It was slavery that trained and fired the first gun at 
Sumter, and, without justifiable cause or provocation, 
precipitated upon this great country the horrors of a civil 
war. And can I trust myself to speak of the starving, 
shooting, and torturing of our captured troops in the 
prison pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Dalton, Colum- 
bia, Wilmington, and Danville, when, without the least 
necessity, without the shadow of an excuse, their infernal 
captors slowly and pitilessly forced them into their 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 211 

graves by thousands ? No, I cannot ! They were all 
slaveholders, or the tools of slaveholders, and they but 
exhibited the temper slavery has developed and en- 
couraged from the beginning of time. 

"What but the barbarism engendered by this "peculiar 
institution" has violated the sanctity of the grave, and, 
disinterring the remains of fallen soldiers, made of their 
bones trinkets and mementoes to amuse friends at home ? 

Shall I remind you of the invariable custom of rebel 
artillerists to shell our hospitals upon the field of battle, 
and that again and again their troops have bayoneted 
the wounded ? Who has forgotten the massacre at Fort 
Pillow; the upsetting of a whole train of ambulances 
filled with wounded men in Tennessee ; the hanging of 
loyal persons, in the presence of their agonized families, 
in all the Southern States ; the slaughter at Lawrence, 
Kansas, of inoffensive citizens, and the burning of their 
habitations and effects by the infamous Quantrell ; the 
attempted destruction of all our Northern cities, crowded 
with inhabitants, by incendiaries ; and the robbery and 
murder at St. Albans ? It would have seemed impossi- 
ble to outdo the horror of such atrocities, but even that 
has been done. This last act crowns and completes the 
whole. Slavery has lost all disguises forever, and must 
now stand forth to the end of time in all its natural and 
revolting hideousness. 

Because I have felt this to be its character for many 
years, I have been unable to endure the thought that 
members of this society, otherwise lovable and engaging, 
should be ranked among its defenders, and so have 
spoken strongly and repeatedly, though always in a spirit 



212 SEHMONS. 

of charity and affection to them. Let me entreat of 
them again, if any there be here, or ask their friends to 
entreat of them if not, to reflect upon the stand they 
have taken, to view it in the light of this last deplorable 
event which has overwhelmed our whole nation with 
sorrow and gloom, and acknowledge that slavery has 
indeed proved itself to be the sum of all human villa- 
nies, and deserves the abhorrence and execration of man- 
kind. 

" Once to every man and nation conies the moment to decide, 
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side : 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom 

or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, 
And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that 

light." 

Whether we will have it so or not, it is very evident 
that God has decreed the abolition of American Slavery. 
Whatever door He opens, man may not shut ; whatever 
door He shuts, man may not open. God is now, and 
ever shall be, what He has been from the beginning. 
" All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, 
and He doeth according to his will, in the armies of 
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and 
none can stay his hand, or say unto Him, * What doest 
Thou ? ' " Amen. 



REV. CHANDLER ROB BINS. 



PSALMS LXXVII: 19. 



Thy way is in the Sea, and thy Path in the geeat 
Waters, and thy Footsteps are not known. 



How mysterious are the ways of Providence ! We 
have passed through such a week of wonders and con- 
trasts, through such quick alternations of fierce extremes 
of emotion, out of long anxiety into sudden hope and 
joy, and anon, from highest jubilee to lowest mourning, 
that — may God have mercy upon us — we come into 
the sanctuary to-day with our minds so agitated, jaded, 
amazed, that we are unfit to offer anything except a pro- 
found acknowledgment of God's inscrutable designs, and 
an humble prayer for his most needed succor. 

How mysterious are the ways of Providence ! We 
felt this, and we said it here — but under what opposite 
conditions ! — only three days ago. We had assembled 
then, at the call of a human magistrate, to humiliate 
ourselves for our sins ; but He who overruleth all had 
recently sent us such a joyful surprise as to turn our 
Fast into a Thanksgiving. And now, on this blessed 
Easter Sunday, which we were expecting to celebrate 
with double gladness, through the association of our joy 

(215) 



216 SERMONS ON THE 

for our country's triumph with our rejoicings for our 
Redeemer's victory, He has permitted our land to be 
shrouded with such a tragic gloom as even the radiance 
of the resurrection cannot wholly dispel. Alas ! that 
the same loving hands which were preparing to grace 
this sacred altar with those simple but fragrant tokens 
of our Christian gratitude, should have been called, at 
the last moment, to entwine around them those drooping- 
emblems of our patriotic woe.* 

How mysterious are the ways of Providence ! The 
life which He had protected for four eventful years 
amidst a thousand dangers ; the life which was dear, 
and every day becoming dearer to all who love our coun- 
try ; the life which, in human view, was most important 
to the nation's welfare ; the life upon whose continu- 
ance, more than upon any other mortal pillar, we hung 
our hopes of a brighter era of justice and of peace ; the 
life which the myriads who are coming out of bondage 
have daily commended with prayers and thanksgivings 
to God ; the life which foreign nations, both friendly and 
jealous, were beginning to respect and honor ; the life 
which, in its peculiar way, was exerting an influence 
more powerful and extensive than that of any potentate 
of the old world ; the life which legions of armed men 
stood ready to protect with their own, He has permitted 
a vile assassin's hand to destroy at one fell blow. 

* Several ladies of the church had prepared a cross of " May- 
flowers " for the front of the pulpit, and a large basket of rich flow- 
ers for the communion-table, in honor of Easter Sunday. On 
hearing of the President's death they draped the pulpit with flags 
of the United States, dressed with mourning. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 217 

We are told in his holy oracles, that, without Him, not 
a sparrow falleth to the ground, nor a hair of His ser- 
vants' heads can be harmed. But He has not interposed 
secret hand to shield that honored head from such an 
ignoble fate. We are told that He counts the tears of 
His children, and hears every sigh of the solitary suf- 
ferer. But He has not thwarted that murderous purpose 
which has flooded a nation with grief, and extorted a 
simultaneous wail of anguish from millions of wounded 
hearts. 

Yes, His ways are indeed mysterious ! But who of us 
would question His wisdom or His mercy ? " As high 
as the heavens are above the earth, so are His thoughts 
higher than our thoughts." Only because they are so 
exalted are they incomprehensible to us. The darkness 
which shrouds His plans is caused by their unfathomable 
depth. We fail to see His goodness, because His love 
is infinite. 

What know we yet of the purposes of His providence 
in permitting this horrid crime ? Who can tell us what, 
consequences God may have foreseen would have resulted 
from the disappointment of that infernal design ? What 
consequences to the distinguished victim himself, and 
what to the nation and to humanity ? You must dis- 
cover that secret before you begin to question His wis- 
dom. Who can tell us that greater evil would not have 
accrued from the arrest, than from the execution of that 
satanic deed ? — greater evil to him whom we lament, to 
the people to whom he was so unselfishly devoted, and 
to the cause of those principles which, as he himself 
once said, were dearer to him than life, — and which 
19 



218 SERMONS ON THE 

ought to be dearer to us also than the life of any mor- 
tal, however honored and beloved. Yon must solve that 
problem, before you can begin to arraign His goodness. 
You must pry into the future, and foresee the results 
which will actually follow from this tragedy, the influ- 
ence it is to have upon the course and welfare of the 
country, upon the settlement of the momentous questions 
that are opening before us, upon the feeling and action 
of the North and of the South, upon our domestic and 
foreign relations and policy, upon the great interests of 
justice, freedom, and Christian civilization, — you must 
look forward and acquaint yourself with these things 
before you begin to murmur at what He has done, " who 
seeth the end from the beginning." 

Yes, His ways are mysterious, — dark, very dark, and 
awful, as we contemplate them amid these first pangs of 
bereavement. But not wholly dark even now. Already 
gleams of light flash upon us through the gloom. Already 
some tokens of loving kindness find their way to our 
hearts. 

He who so reluctantly inaugurated the war of defence 
and retribution which treason had forced upon us ; he 
who till the last moment cherished the delusive hope, 
offspring of his own generous nature, that his rebellious 
countrymen would relent ; he who, through all the stages 
of the fierce conflict, in spite of the bitterness which it 
has engendered and the spirit of retaliation it has pro- 
voked, has invariably leaned to the side of forgiveness 
and mercy ; he who, whatever errors he may be judged 
by any to have committed, has under God conducted the 
nation safely and honorably through its long path of 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 219 

peril ; he who, as the event has proved, was the provi- 
dential man for the last four years, and whom we could 
not have spared during their progress without far worse 
disasters than any which have befallen us, — he has 
been graciously preserved to rejoice with us all over those 
last victories which have vindicated the violated authori- 
ty of the nation ; he has been spared to hear the shouts 
of our armies hailing the glorious issue which has crowned 
their valor, and repaid them for all their toils ; he has 
been spared to see the flag of the Union floating over the 
strongholds of rebellion ; to contemplate near at hand the 
blessed prospect of peace ; to meditate a proclamation of 
amnesty; to consider with his Cabinet the terms of rec- 
onciliation, and to send abroad to foreign nations those 
significant messages which re-assert the suspended rights 
of the nation, and demand the unqualified recognition of 
its re-established dignity and power. In these provi- 
dential favors, which come at once to remembrance, we 
should be ungrateful not to recognize the divine benig- 
nity, both to him and to us. 

Moreover, we cannot but feel that he has died in a 
good time for himself; in a moment of joy, in an hour 
of hope and triumph, in the midst of peaceful and gen- 
erous thoughts, while offering grateful aspirations to 
God, and devising acts of forgiveness and magnanimity 
towards man. Though the manner of his death is 
shocking to us, yet we should not forget that to him it 
was without a pang. Though we contemplate the vile- 
ness of the instrument with indignation and abhorrence, 
yet he himself had no suspicion of the malignity of 



220 SERMONS ON THE 

which he was the victim, and no feeling of revenge 
towards the murderer who hurried him to his rest. 

Whether he has died also in a good time for his 
country and for us, remains yet to be revealed. That 
Providence designs this event for the ultimate good of 
the nation we will not, we cannot doubt. But of what 
nature that good may be, and in what ways it may be 
accomplished, only the future will disclose. 

Perhaps it may be His holy purpose to subject us to 
yet new tribulations. Perhaps He sees that we have not 
improved as we ought the discipline which has been 
hitherto laid upon us. Perhaps He perceives that it is 
necessary that we should pass through yet another fur- 
nace of affliction before we shall have become purified 
like gold tried in the fire. Perhaps He has seen that 
we have trusted too much to an arm of flesh. Perhaps 
He knows that the awful lessons of the war have not 
sunk deep enough into our hearts ; that vanity and 
pride, frivolity and luxury, intemperance and dishonesty, 
reckless speculation and greed of gain, immorality and 
ungodliness, have not been rebuked and abashed and 
awed as they ought to have been by His judgments, by 
the vast bereavements and calamities which have been 
visited upon us for our public and private sins. 

If such as these are among His purposes, — and that 
they may be, the consciences of many must bear witness 
that there is too much cause for believing, — then it rests 
in no small measure with ourselves whether this sudden 
chastisement shall eventuate in our good. O my country- 
men, my countrymen! let us suffer ourselves to be 
implored and admonished, by all that is solemn and 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 221 

shocking in this bereavement ; by this startling evidence 
of the brittleness of human life and the vanity of human 
hopes ; by this awful warning of the fearful crimes to 
which wicked passions lead ; by all that is instructive 
and exemplary in the life, and all that is impressive 
and touching in the death, of the honored head of our 
nation ; by all that our country has suffered and is suf- 
fering ; by all the precious blood which has been shed 
in its behalf; by all the claims it has upon its children ; 
by all we owe to God, to our families, to our fellow-men, 
and to our own souls, — let us be admonished and im- 
plored to put away the evil of our doings ; to cast out 
all low and selfish passions from our hearts ; to watch 
and pray that we ourselves may not fall into temptation; 
to watch and pray and work, each one of us in his place, 
for the promotion of public virtue and the correction of 
the national sins ; to dedicate the remainder of our lives 
to wisdom and righteousness. It is upon the moral 
results of these times of trial that the salvation both of 
our country and ourselves depends ; and for these, let 
us remember, God will hold our citizens individually 
responsible. 

But the oppressive sense of our great bereavement 
must not be permitted to draw our thoughts away from 
that sublime and joyous event which the whole Christian 
world commemorates to-day. Indeed, it is all the more 
salutary and needful, amidst this national distress and 
perplexity, while the winds and waves are roaring, 
while the earthly foundations of our confidence are 
shaking beneath us, and the pillars of human pride and 
hope are falling around us, that we should turn anew to 
19* 



222 SERMONS ON THE 

the bright revelation of immortal life, and contemplate 
afresh the radiant pledge of the incorruptible and un- 
fading inheritance. 

Christ is risen ! Thanks be to God, who has set this 
transcendent fact over against all the gloom and misery 
and mystery of man's earthly lot ; thanks, that the 
interposing love of our Maker has inwrought it as a 
vital reality into human experience and history ; thanks, 
that the heel of the woman's seed is actually planted on 
the serpent's head; that redeeming energy has mani- 
fested itself in human flesh ; that the Eternal Word has 
spoken its life-giving truths through human lips ; that 
that " Eternal Life which was with the Father " has 
been upon the earth, seen by mortal eyes and handled 
by mortal hands ; that power and love divine have come 
down from heaven and dwelt among us, healing our 
diseases, comforting our sorrows, forgiving and taking 
away our sins ; that the Son of God, the " Wonderful," 
the " Conqueror," the " Prince of Peace," of whose 
" kingdom there shall be no end," has taken upon him- 
self our own nature, — dignifying it by his perfect life, 
redeeming it by his obedient death, renovating it by his 
quickening spirit, raising and glorifying it by his own 
glorious rising, — that he is bound to us and identified 
with us by the ties and sympathies of a common human- 
ity, and has promised to love and guide and save and 
sanctify, and bring home, at length, spotless and joyous, 
to his Father's presence, every one who believes in him. 

To-day, in the midst of our gloom, we will fix our 
thoughts and our hearts upon this " mystery of godli- 
ness," this miracle of the divine mercy, wrought in with 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 223 

the course of human events as palpably as the saddest 
reality of our experience, — more vivid and more im- 
pressive than the most tragic scene of history, — till all 
that is dark, disheartening and appalling fades into 
comparative obscurity, and the whole soul is irradiated 
with the glory of that majestic vision. 

Come, then, all ye who believe that " Christ died for 
our sins, and rose again for our justification " ; in this 
hour of general Christian jubilee, lift up your eyes, 
swollen with weeping, lift up your hearts, burdened 
with grief, and bear your part with the vast chorus of 
believers, who are raising, in ten thousand temples, their 
song of Christian triumph, — "Thanks be to God, who 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! " 



REV. W. S. STUDLEY. 



LAMENTATIONS V: 15, 16, 17, 19. 



The Joy of our Heart is ceased ; our Dance is turned 
into Mourning. The Crown is fallen from our Head. 
Woe unto us, that we have sinned. For this our Heart 
is faint. For these Things our Eyes are dim. * * * 
THOU, O Lord ! remainest forever ! Thy Throne from 
Generation to Generation. 



This bright Easter morning is one of the saddest, and, 
at the same time, one of the most hopeful mornings that 
ever dawned upon the American people. 

In the vigor of his days, in the ripeness of his expe- 
rience as a ruler, in the midst of duties which no man 
knew or was better qualified to discharge than he, the 
foremost man of this nation has been struck down by 
the hand of an assassin. 

Abraham Lincoln, our President, whose mental and 
moral vision was as clear and true as a sunbeam, and 
whose great heart was as tender and loving as a wom- 
an's, a man who possessed such a genial and generous 
nature that he had scarcely a personal enemy in the 
world, — having guided the republic safely through the 
darkest night of trial that ever gathered about any 

(227) 



228 SERMONS ON THE 

people since the foundation of the world, — just when 
the morning light begins to dawn upon us, giving prom- 
ise of a long and glorious day, — this wise and just and 
merciful ruler lies murdered in the capital ! 

What language can express our horror of the blow 
which struck him down ? And what shall we say of the 
hellish power which prompted and aimed the blow ? 

We thought we had already seen the utmost reach 
of barbarism and savagery of which the slave-power is 
capable. We had seen it trample on the rights of four 
millions of people, using them solely for its own infernal 
lusts. We had seen it make war on the most beneficent 
and kindly government that was ever devised among 
men. We had seen it take the slain victims of that 
war, and of their bones make toys and playthings and 
personal adornments for its wives and children. We 
had seen it take the living victims of that war, and 
transform sixty thousand of them into idiotic skeletons 
or ghastly corpses by the torturing process of starvation. 
Ay, in a land teeming with abundance, in the very heart 
of Georgia, tens of thousands of Federal soldiers, — 
under the direction of Jefferson Davis, and with the 
consent of Robert E. Lee, — were literally and delib- 
erately and vindictively starved to death, or into hope- 
less idiocy ; and the last breath of many a brave man 
was spent in offering a pitiful but unanswered cry for 
bread ! 

And now, to fill the measure of its wickedness, 
slavery has done — what ? How shall we characterize 
its latest deed ? What lexicon contains the word by 
which to fitly call it ? What shall we name the act 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 229 

of one who comes behind an unarmed, unsuspecting 
man, — surrounded by his family, enjoying an hour's 
respite from the weightiest burden of responsibility and 
care that ever rested upon a single mind, — and delib- 
erately shoots him down ? What shall we call the act 
of one who goes to the darkened chamber of an almost 
dying man, — a man whose bones have just been 
so shattered by accident as to make it doubtful if he 
ever moves again, — and, leaping upon the bed, with 
the fury of a fiend, plunges a dagger, again and again, 
into his helpless and almost lifeless form ? And these 
nameless deeds slavery has just done to increase and 
perpetuate its previous record of infamy ! 

Marc Antony, standing above the body of the mur- 
dered Caesar, is represented by the great dramatist 
as saying what we might say to-day above the scarred 
remains of the late wise and generous President of this 
republic : 

" Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
That ever lived in the tide of times ! 
"Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood ! " 

Ay, woe to Slavery! — woe to its perjured, bloody- 
handed champion, Jefferson Davis ! — woe to its adher- 
ents and defenders, its advocates and apologists, whether 
in Carolina or Massachusetts ! Behold, the hour of its 
destruction is at hand ! Nay, this very Easter Sunday 
is the day of its resurrection ! — its resurrection to ever- 
lasting shame and contempt! — its resurrection to com- 
plete and eternal damnation ! Its doom is sealed ! 

To-day, for one, I would rather be the murdered 
20 



230 SERMONS ON THE 

President, or the wounded Secretary, than to be the man, 
who, in this hour of the nation's sorrow, has no prayer 
to offer for the final and utter extermination of that 
system which has lifted itself so long against our peace. 

When Slavery did this last and most brutal of all its 
deeds, it doubtless thought to intimidate the future rulers 
of this land from meting out to traitors the punishment 
which their crimes deserve. But it made a fearful 
mistake. In dealing with traitors, Andrew Johnson's 
little finger will be thicker than Abraham Lincoln's 
loins. If the old president chastised them with whips, 
the new president will chastise them with scorpions. 
Here is what he said only last week in a public address 
on the occasion of the fall of Richmond : 

'• Treason is the highest crime known in the catalogue 
of crimes ; and for him that is guilty of it, — for him 
that is willing to lift his impious hand against the 
authority of the nation, — I would say death is too easy 
a punishment. My notion is that treason must be made 
odious ; that traitors must be punished and impoverished: 
their social power broken. 

" You, my friends, have traitors in your very midst, and 
treason needs rebuke and punishment here as well as 
elsewhere. It is not the men in the field who are the 
greatest traitors. It is the men who have encouraged 
them to imperil their lives, while they themselves have 
remained at home, expending their means, and exerting 
all then power, to overthrow the government. Hence I 
say this : ' the halter to intelligent, influential traitors.' 
But to the honest boy, to the deluded man, who have 
been deceived into the rebel ranks, I would extend 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 231 

leniency. I would say return to your allegiance, renew 
your support to the government, and become good 
citizens ; but the leaders I would hang." 

Nor is this a new-born sentiment in the heart of 
Andrew Johnson ; for as long ago as the second of 
March, 1861, in a thrilling speech, which created an 
unparalleled outbreak of enthusiasm in the galleries of 
the Senate Chamber, he said : 

' ' Show me the man who makes war on the govern- 
ment, and fires on its vessels, and I will show you a 
traitor. And, if 1 were President of the United States, I 
would have all such arrested, and when tried and con- 
victed, by the eternal God, I would have them hung /" 

There is hope, therefore, in the bright beams of this 
Easter sun! Our new ruler knows how to deal with 
traitors ! 

Abraham Lincoln is dead : slain by the hand of 
slavery ! He lived long enough, however, to see the 
promised land from Pisgah ; long enough to witness 
the triumph of that army and navy of which he was the 
commander-in-chief; long enough to walk through the 
streets of Richmond, clad in magisterial authority; long 
enough to insure for the American people " liberty and 
union, now and forever, one and inseparable " ; long 
enough to insure for himself a spotless record — a death- 
less name. That which the poet sung of the Greek hero 
is peculiarly applicable to our departed leader : 

" Thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's ! " 
There is hope, I say, as well as sadness, in this hour ; 



232 SERMONS. 

the joy of our heart may have ceased ; our dance may 
have been turned into mourning ; the crown may have 
fallen from our head, but " Thou, O Loed, eemainest 
foeevee; Thy throne eeom geneeation to gen- 
eration. And, while God remains, truth cannot be 
shorn of its beauty or strength by any of the machina- 
tions of error. 

On that dreadful Friday, when the enemies of Jesus 
nailed Him to the cross, they thought that they had 
silenced Him for ever ; but there was never a greater 
mistake. They had only placed Him where His divine 
beauty could be more clearly seen, and where His divine 
power could be more widely exerted. 

And so it will be always. Every purpose of evil is 
certain to be overruled for good. No outrage upon relig- 
ion, or humanity, is permitted to go unavenged forever. 

Four years ago the arch leader of the rebellion declared 
that the war should be waged on northern soil; that, 
within their own State lines, the people of the North 
should smell southern powder and feel southern steel. 
But God ordained it otherwise. His decree went forth 
that the power of injustice should be destroyed on the 
very spot where it had been exerted. And this latest 
crime of treachery and oppression, which has filled every 
loyal heart so suddenly with mourning, by God's over- 
ruling grace shall work out more perfectly the redemp- 
tion of our land. Amen. 



REV. RUFUS ELLIS. 



L UKE XXIV: 5, 6. 



And as they were afraid, and bowed down their Faces 
to the Earth, they said unto them, "Why seek ye the 

LIVING AMONG THE DEAD ? He IS NOT HERE, BUT IS RISEN. 



The voices still sound for the ear of faith ; and he 
who hath that ear, let him hear what the spirit saith 
unto the churches to-day. It is our resurrection-morn- 
ing, a time consecrated to gladness ; and yet it finds a 
nation in tears. Our tower of strength is fallen. Bloody 
violence has invaded the high places of the land ; and 
he who was in deed as well as in name the head of the 
people, more and more trusted, more and" more loved, 
as he was better and better known, lies dead, — our 
country's martyr. Only on the last Thursday I tried 
to acknowledge, in a few earnest words, the eminent 
worth and high services of our noble President, and now 
he is no more with us on earth ; and, saddest thought 
of all, the wrath of man hath wrought for us this woe. 
Let every believing soul exercise a high and serene and 
Christian trust, according to the great necessities of an 
hour which hath no precedent in our history, and be 
wise and calm and faithful in the persuasion, that, in 

(235) 



236 SERMONS ON THE 

the providence of God, the wrath of man shall accom- 
plish all the more completely that divine purpose which 
nothing can defeat or so much as delay. Our Easter * 
flowers shall remain in the house of prayer, not because 
we are glad, — we cannot be glad to-day, — but because 
we are full of the great hope which is the Christian's 
anchor, and which holds in the stormiest sea. They 
are providentially here to grace the burial of our Chief 
Magistrate, honored and well beloved, the best defence 
of the nation, under God, only yesterday : they shall be 
eloquent symbols of immortality, shining witnesses of 
the light that burns behind the darkest clouds, and 
of the love which is unchanging ; of the earth, earthy, 
and yet fragrant as with the airs of heaven, and telling 
us of things heavenly, that — 

" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
Stand dressed in living green." 

I am not sorry that it is Easter-morning ; that the sad 
message has found us at the open tomb of Jesus, thank- 
ful, with a Christian thankfulness, that death is for 
ever abolished, and taught, by that look of triumph in 
the eyes of our risen Lord, how surely and how swiftly 
sometimes God brings the best things out of the worst, 
and clothes the heaviest spirits in the most radiant gar- 
ments of praise. Let us confess his hand; and that 
known unto him are all the works of man from the 
foundation of the world ; and that this blow also was 
needed, else it had not been given in the providence of 
One who never willingly afflicts. 

* Easter Sunday, April 16. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 237 

" Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He is 
not here, but is risen." It is a pious, faithful, and most 
tender office to go to the graves of our loved ones ; and 
not to weep there were to be less than human. Know 
ye not, said the apostle, that ye are the temples of God ; 
and that your very bodies are consecrated, fashioned into 
majesty and beauty by the life within ? And we have 
all seen how the departing spirit sets upon the lifeless 
form its own lovely image ; and, in proportion as we 
honor the soul, we deal very tenderly with the soul's 
wonderful tabernacle. Nevertheless there is need of the 
question, "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" 
— need that, even here in Christendom, we should again 
and again be told, "He is not here, but is risen." 
They are not the words which man's wisdom teacheth. 
Science does not announce them amongst her discoveries, 
old or new. The heart of nature hath no such burden 
as that to roll forth from its burning core, persistent as 
is its hope, deep as is its desire of immortality. The 
voices are the voices of angels ; they come to us from 
that tomb in which Christ and his gospel seemed to be 
for ever buried ; they are the echoes of those early testi- 
monies which declared to all the world, beginning at 
Jerusalem, that he who " suffered under Pontius Pilate, 
was crucified, dead, and buried," rose from the dead on 
the third day, to be called, ever after, the Lord's Day, 
to be the Easter of each week, — 

" Till week-days, following in their train, 
The fulness of the blessing gain ; 
Till all, both resting and employ, 
Be one Lord's Day of holy joy." 



238 SERMONS ON THE 

It is an unspeakable privilege to live in days when 
the angelic voices are to be heard ; and we never hear 
them more distinctly, and are never more sure that they 
are from heaven, than when, in our human weakness, we 
are afraid, and our faces are bowed down to the earth. 
It would be agony sometimes to look upon the poor 
stricken body, over which the change may have passed 
almost in the twinkling of an eye, if the spirit which 
leads us into all blessed and consoling truths were not 
waiting for the opportunity to say, " He is not here, but 
is risen;" for that is what the spirit whispers in the 
heart of every true believer since the Lord abolished 
death. The bridegroom has been taken from them, and 
the children of the bridechamber may well mourn ; but 
it is a holy and hopeful sorrow which moves their hearts, 
and they are lifted at once into heavenly places with the 
departed, and he is transfigured before them ; and the 
eyes which were holden before that they could not see 
are anointed; and, because he lives, we live. Listen 
now, as you never yet have listened, for the angelic 
voices. It is a nation's opportunity to grow into a 
deeper faith in the everlasting life, — a faith that death 
only sets free, and reveals the bound and hidden soul. 
It is a faith which we owe to Christ. He changed the 
philosopher's opinion and the people's hope into a prac- 
tical and abiding persuasion. The angels did not light 
up the tomb with their glowing faces and shining gar- 
ments until he was laid in it. Then words of good 
cheer were heard, which were not passed by as the idle 
tales of the superstitious, but were taken up as most 
authentic gospels, and proclaimed wherever men, from 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 239 

fear of death, were subject to bondage. It is our blessed 
heritage from those who were glad because they had 
seen the Lord. It is a faith which we can have in its 
power and fulness only so far as we are thoroughly 
Christian, not merely in the reception of the outward 
facts, but in a conformity to the very heart and mind of 
Christianity. It is a faith which must be proportioned 
to our other faiths, and chiefly to our confidence in truth 
and goodness and immortal love. Not to all the people 
is Christ revealed, but to witnesses chosen before of 
God, who, though like Thomas they might hesitate for a 
moment, could not scoff like the Athenians when Jesus 
and the resurrection were named together, since nothing 
could be more credible than the rising of such a Lord. 
Not of us is it to believe ; and yet God's gift is also 
our act, and we must exercise ourselves in this grace ; 
and a public grief so heavy and so unlooked for, and so 
suggestive of anxious questionings as this, which presses 
upon all hearts to-day, may challenge and exalt our 
faith in things unseen, and help us to taste the powers 
of the world to come, even more than a private sorrow. 
Let this be the measure of our Christianity. By this 
let us know whether we have been the companions and 
friends of Jesus, — whether we look at the things 
which are seen, or at the things which are not seen, 
according as we shall be able to look up from the 
grave, and to seek for the living in their appointed 
and exalted places. God is not the God of the dead. 
Truly to confess Him is to confess the life everlasting. 
No hand of violence can rob you of aught living, or 
consign you to hopeless sorrowing for the dead, if you 



240 SERMONS ON THE 

yourself are truly alive. Find the soul in the body whilst 
the body lives, and you cannot be persuaded, — no, not 
though an angel from heaven should say it, — that, 
when the body dies, the soul too goes down with the 
dust into the grave. " Neither wilt thou suffer thine 
Holy One to see corruption." Oh, for that strong and 
ardent faith, which, in losing a visible person, gains an 
invisible life ! — a life which is ours no more by virtue 
of corporal contact or contiguity, but flows in upon us 
through channels hidden and divine. 

It is a blessed faith which enables us, when the man 
is gone, to rejoice as we never rejoiced before in his 
high and gracious manhood ; and, when the countenance 
is changed, to walk more gladly and steadfastly than 
ever before in the pure light which illumined it, and 
made the hard lines of a plain and often sad face soft 
and flowing and almost comely. It is a blessed faith 
which so joins us to the wisdom and goodness, to the 
honor and gentleness, and all the fair and sweet human- 
ities of our friend, that, when he is taken from us in a 
moment, we find that what made him justly dear is 
more ours than ever ; not to be groped for among the 
dead, but already abroad in this world of the living ; 
accomplishing still the will of God on earth, and 
amongst the children of men. It is a blessed faith 
which suffers us not to linger over our dead beyond the 
just time of a natural and healthy sorrow, but commits 
and commends us, as soon as may be, to the paths of 
our daily life in which he walked ; to the works which 
he was not permitted to do, and to the greater works 
which he promised ; which makes him more to us, in the 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 241 

way of inspiration and guidance, than he could have 
been whilst he was in the body. In mourning for the 
tabernacle which a mad and wicked hand hath invaded, 
do not forget to seize and appropriate the great life 
which hath been not so much unclothed as clothed upon. 
Disappoint any who may have secretly desired or planned 
this great crime, by showing forth, with the enthusiasm 
of a new discipleship, the very being, the very persistent 
purpose, which they would have put out of the world 
had it been possible. And what vengeance is to be 
compared with that divine vengeance which multiplies 
a thousand-fold the one voice that a cruel death has 
silenced, and makes of the truth which was buried in the 
ground a word of strength and joy for the whole world ? 
There is a crime unto death. It ought not to be 
lightly dealt with. Let no man ask that it may be for- 
given ; but, when the ministers of God who bear not 
the sword in vain have fulfilled their office, and the 
criminal has received the stern sentence, let us remem- 
ber, were it only for the honor and the love which we 
bear to our dead, the generous and humane spirit that 
was so large a part of his noble manhood. I confess 
that I have not thought that they mourn for him wisely, 
who, renouncing his spirit before his poor outraged clay 
was cold, propose to be bitter and revengeful in fact, 
though not of course in name, as he was not. Friends, — 
Christian friends, — followers of him whose first disciples 
were as loving as they were just, let us not forget the 
many sad warnings of man's history, the cheats which 
his deceitful heart has put upon him ; let us not forget 
that what is begun in righteousness and love is often 
21 



242 SERMONS. 

ended, and not well, in unrighteousness and wrath. We 
shall have lost our noble leader indeed, if we lose his 
spirit, the wise and considerate mind, the excellent 
judgment, the tender, humane heart, that were in him ; 
if, with all the wrongs, cruel wrongs, foul wrongs, that 
we have suffered as a nation, we forget that we are a 
Christian nation, and proceed to demand, and that, too, 
in the name of our gentle sufferer, measures of severity 
which he would never have sanctioned; so taking 
advantage of his dying, to thwart one of the high aims 
of his living. You know that I have spoken in but one 
voice from the beginning of this war, pleading for its 
rightfulness in the sight of the highest Christianity ; and 
so you will not misunderstand my warning, lest, misled 
by passion, and not following, as we suppose, our man 
of peace, we inaugurate a reign of terror and blood. 
God grant that our martyr may be our deliverer ; that 
he who was raised up in the most manifest providence 
of the Lord to be our counsellor and guide in our years 
of sore trial, may still rule and bless the people from 
the hiding-place of spiritual power ; and, if we have 
had occasion to distrust him who is now called to the 
highest seat, may our fears be changed into hopes, and 
the desire of the nation be accomplished ! * 

* The preacher desires that the paragraphs above may not be 
interpreted as recommending lenity to the authors of privy 
conspiracy and rebellion ; and he is glad to add that the circum- 
stances, well known to the country, which led so many to distrust 
our present national Chief Magistrate, have been explained, by 
those who speak with authority, to his entire satisfaction. 



REV. SAMUEL K. LOTHROP. 



2 SAMUEL XIX: 2 



And the Victory that Day was turned into Mourning 
unto all the people. 



Brethren, but one theme can command your attention 
this morning. Only the contemplation of one event, 
solemn and momentous, looked at in the light of that 
inscrutable providence which is ever wise and merciful, 
studied in its social and civil, its moral and religious 
aspects, is in harmony with the painful emotions that 
swell our hearts, the troubled thoughts that are pressing 
upon our minds. 

Three days since, we gathered here for a service of 
humiliation, of human appointment, at the call of the 
civil authorities ; God so ordered it, that it became of 
necessity a service of gratitude and thanksgiving. The 
black cloud of treason and rebellion, which for four 
years had lowered over the land, seemed distinctly 
broken and scattered, floating away in the distance. 
The dawn of approaching peace, of reunion, of pros- 
perity, of a glorious and honorable future for the nation, 
gave clear indications that it must ere long burst upon 

21* (245) 



246 SERMONS ON THE 

us in splendid effulgence ; so that, though conscious of 
our unworthiness, we could not think of our sins so 
much as of the divine goodness and mercy. 

We expected to gather here this beautiful Easter 
Sunday with our thoughts far away from present scenes, 
undisturbed by civil cares or anxieties ; travelling back 
to that holy morning hour when the gates of the sepul- 
chre, sealed and guarded by all the power of the Caesars, 
were riven, and " the Crucified " came forth, and the 
world awoke to find itself bathed with new light, 
clothed with an immortal hope, refreshed with a heav- 
enly benediction, that would be felt anew in our hearts 
on this grand and solemn anniversary. But again God 
has otherwise ordered. We cannot forget that blessed 
and stupendous fact in his providence, — the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, — but the 
echo, coming down to us through the ages, of that 
glorious declaration, " He is not here, he is risen," 
which we expected would break upon our ears, filling 
our hearts with peace and gladness, is lost, as it were, 
overborne by the stunning announcement which burst 
upon us yesterday morning : " He is dead, — Abraham 
Lincoln, the President of the United States, is dead, — 
felled by the hand of a dastardly assassin, in the midst 
of a scene of quiet and peaceful relaxation from the 
oppressive cares of state." We cannot put from our 
thoughts that sudden and startling announcement, that 
sad and solemn event. It is not necessary that we 
should ; nay, it is every way meet that we should not. 
The true place to which we should bring this great be- 
reavement, this atrocious crime, this national calamity, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 247 

this loss to the world, this event, the magnitude of 
whose influences, as they touch the relations and affect 
the policy of our own or other nations, cannot be com- 
puted, — the true place to which to bring it and all the 
thoughts and emotions it awakens, is the altar of God ; 
that we may bow there with a submission as profound 
as our sorrow, with a trust as deep and strong as our 
necessities. 

Brethren, I feel almost incompetent to direct your 
thoughts this morning, as 1 have scarcely been able for 
the last twenty-four hours to collect and guide my own. 
Language seems impotent to give utterance to all that I 
think and feel. But, doubtless, your experience has been 
similar to my own. Yesterday, after the first outburst 
of my sorrow, and, I am not ashamed to add, of 
righteous indignation against the fiendish author of this 
terrific tragedy, the instincts of faith and the habit of 
my heart prevailed, and I heard, as it were, the Holy 
Spirit breathing in my ear the solemn and sublime 
injunction, " Be still, and know that I am God ; " and 
there was borne in upon my mind, also, that declaration 
of the patriarch Jacob, uttered for the comfort of his 
children as they were about to be deprived of the coun- 
sels of his wisdom and the joy of his presence, " Behold 
I die, but God shall be with you." Our first duty, my 
friends, in this sad hour, now, as in all great emergencies, 
public and private, the only help, comfort, and strength 
of our souls is to turn unto God, and lean upon Him. 
We must strive to be calm. This calamity which seems 
unspeakably great, this bereavement which makes a 
nation weep and covers a mighty land with mourning, 



248 SERMONS ON THE 

this demon deed, instigated by the brutal passions, and 
perpetrated in the utter moral bewilderment, which, as 
many incidents in this war, and the war itself, so pain- 
fully and so conclusively testify, the barbarous institu- 
tion of slavery begets in the human heart, was within 
the control of the Almighty Providence; and, in some 
way, which we cannot fathom, it will be made to con- 
tribute to our good, and the furtherance of the benignant 
purposes of that Providence. We believe this ; we must 
strive to feel it, and be calm. Many have been accus- 
tomed, of late, to regard, and to speak of Abraham 
Lincoln, as a providential man. Political opponents, as 
well as friends, have been disposed to acquiesce in the 
epithet ; the idea was fast getting to be the general feel- 
ing, the conviction of the nation. It was natural that 
this feeling should have arisen, have grown so strong, and 
been so cherished as to become a conviction. His history 
and character, his slender opportunities, and marked 
abilities, the wonderful way in which, under providence, 
he has presided over the nation, and by a singularly 
wise, calm, unimpassioned, but firm and persevering 
policy, carried the country, with honor before the world, 
through four years of a civil war which has no parallel 
in the record of the nations, seem to justify and demand 
that he should be regarded as the man for the crisis, 
" a providential man." 

" I called thee from the sheep-cote to be ruler over 
Israel," said the Lord to David, and the words have an 
application and significance here. The shepherd of 
Hebron, called to the throne of Israel, and the humble 
citizen of Illinois, raised from the lowly sphere of private 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 249 

life to the most august position, and the charge of the 
most momentous affairs, as President of the United States, 
have a providential similitude, which we may rightfully 
recognize. The care of sheep seemed no meet prepara- 
tion for the cares of state : and the humble duties, the 
limited range of action, and small experience in public 
national affairs, embraced in Mr. Lincoln's previous life, 
seemed but a meagre preparation for the exalted post he 
was called to fill ; the weighty and responsible trusts he 
was summoned to discharge. It will be the verdict of 
history however, it is the admission of to-day, it is the 
testimony of every honest and unprejudiced heart in the 
land, that he has discharged these duties amid circum- 
stances of unparalleled embarrassment and difficulty, with 
vast and singular wisdom. Even his peculiarities of per- 
son, manners, and character, unchanged by his elevation 
to exalted station and large power, have contributed to his 
usefulness and increased his personal influence, because 
they have been rightfully interpreted as indications that 
the man was greater than his office, and therefore com- 
petent to its duties and worthy of its honors. Never 
before, I apprehend, has any man been invested with the 
august dignity of the Presidency of this great republic, 
and been so little changed by it ; so little affected by 
the personal aggrandizement, so free from the intellectual 
and moral giddiness often consequent upon the position. 
He has grown, undoubtedly, since his entrance upon his 
high office; grown immensely and continually; enlarged 
intellectually, developed morally : but he has shown all 
along, and concentrated in himself thereby, more and 
more, the confidence of the nation, that his heart was as 



250 SERMONS ON THE 

warm, his nature as simple, his purpose as honest, his 
judgment as strong and clear, his head as cool, amid all 
the grandeur and glory of the nation's palace, and the 
shaping of the nation's course and policy, as they were 
beneath the humble roof of his private dwelling, and 
the little routine and the petty cares of his attorney's 
office on the Western prairies. Such indifference or 
superiority to the influence of outward position is a clear 
indication of something great and strong in the character. 
Forty hours ago, my friends, I presume we should all 
have acquiesced in speaking of Abraham Lincoln as 
" a providential man'' ; and the expression would have 
been an indication of a patriotic cheerfulness, trust, and 
faith in our hearts. If called upon to justify it, we 
should have spoken briefly of these four memorable 
years ; of his unquestionable escape from assassination 
on his journey to Washington for his first inauguration ; 
of the dark prospects, the extraordinary embarrassments 
under which he assumed the reins of government, and 
entered upon the administration of our affairs ; of his 
sagacity, his mingled moderation and firmness at the 
outset ; of his wonderful wisdom in following the lead- 
ings of Providence and the course of events, as evinced 
in his various proclamations and the successive steps 
of his policy ; of the feeble life of the nation, — its 
existence hanging upon a thread, — and of the all but 
impotence of the government, as he received it from the 
hands of his predecessor ; and of the healthy, deep- 
throbbing life of the nation at this hour ; and of the 
government, strong, nay, mighty and irresistible, through 
the nation's confidence, — and we should have felt that 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 251 

in all this there was an ample justification of the faith 
which turned trustingly to him as a man of wonderful 
endowments, raised up by Providence to meet a momen- 
tous emergency in our national career. 

We should have been right in thus feeling ; but — 
and here is the point and purpose of what I have said 
— if his life was providential, is not his death prov- 
idential also ? If God raised him up for a grand 
purpose, for a great and noble work, would he permit 
his death, and that purpose unaccomplished, that work 
not done ? He has not fulfilled all our wishes, answer- 
ed all our expectations, discharged all the trusts we 
reposed in him ; but has he not done God's work, — the 
work God gave him to do for us ? Who shall dare to 
assume that he has not ? Who shall refuse to hope and 
to believe, that events will reveal the Providence in his 
death to be as wise and benignant as the Providence in 
his life. Ah, how sad, how bereaved the Israelites felt 
when Moses went up into the mountain, and returned 
not, but died there alone ! For forty years he had led 
them in the wilderness, and, after many misgivings on 
their part, become the object of their reverence and 
their trust. By counsel and encouragement, by instruc- 
tion and example, he had sustained them in all the 
perils and privations of their wanderings, and brought 
them at length, under the divine guidance, to the banks 
of the Jordan, which they were about to pass, and to 
the sight of the promised land, which they were about 
to possess. He beheld that land, and saw that it was 
beautiful and good, but was not permitted to enter it. 
Israel wept at his fate and mourned his loss, but found 



252 SERMONS ON THE 

in Joshua another leader adequate to their great 
necessities. So our Israel mourns this day its provi- 
dential leader and head. A resemblance to David, in 
his elevation from a humble to an exalted station, there 
is a resemblance to Moses in the time, though not in the 
manner, of his departure. He has led us through four 
years of terrible civil war ; amid the occasional mis- 
givings of some of his friends, and beneath the conflict 
of parties, he has steadily gained upon the confidence, 
the respect and affection of the nation : till at length 
it may be safely said, that, on Friday last, there was no 
man living in whose political wisdom and sagacity, in 
whose moderation and magnanimity, in whose simple 
honesty of purpose, and broad, unselfish patriotism, the 
great mass of the people, of all sections and all parties, 
reposed such confidence, as in Abraham Lincoln's. It 
was the general, the all but universal feeling, that, in 
some just and right way, he would pilot the nation 
safely and honorably through to a glorious peace and a 
blessed reunion. Like Moses on the banks of the 
Jordan, he saw this peace in near prospect, and felt that 
the object of all his noble efforts, his days and nights of 
anxious thought and painful solicitude, was just within 
his grasp. But, like Moses, he was not permitted to 
enter into that peace, to attain personally that object. 
Suddenly, like a bolt from heaven, the dastard hand of 
an assassin did its work, and 

1 * He who cared not to be great, 
But as he served or saved the State," 

passed from the scene of his glory and his usefulness; 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 253 

and the universal joy in our recent triumphs and cheer- 
ing prospects, "the victory of that day is turned into 
mourning unto all the people." 

Brethren, our first and our last duty, the beginning 
and the end of our consolation, our only help, is to turn 
unto God, and trust ; to feel that the Lord God omnipo- 
tent reigneth, and that all will be well. Even beneath 
this trust there is sorrow and anxiety in our hearts. The 
death of our President at this crisis is a tremendous loss, 
and I would not say one word to diminish your sense of 
it ; for it can hardly be over-estimated. It is a great 
national calamity, and I feel it to be so. Every nerve 
and fibre of my being vibrates to it. I would not feel it 
less, or have you feel it less. It comes also in the form 
of an atrocious public outrage and murder, with a fear- 
ful shock to us and to the world. For the first time 
that monster crime, — to be abhorred by every citizen in 
every land, but most of all under a government like ours, 
— political assassination from the unhallowed promptings 
of political and party passions, stains our annals, startles 
us from our security, ay, and from our dreams of for- 
bearance and tenderness. How far the rebel govern- 
ment or leaders, recently at Richmond, were privy to the 
fiendish purpose so fatally executed, remains to be ascer- 
tained and proved : it is not to be assumed. That they 
were vindictive, desperate, and cruel enough for such 
privity, the stories, too terribly authenticated to be 
doubted or denied, of the Libby, of Belle Isle, and of 
Andersonviile, are conclusive evidence ; and I confess 
that my strong disposition to forbear, forgive, and trust, 
grows weak ; it melts away almost, before that indelible 
22 



254 SERMONS ON THE 

record of inhuman barbarities, deliberately, perseveringly 
practised, month after month, upon defenceless men, 
prisoners of war, within immediate reach, within sight 
almost of the headquarters of the most distinguished 
general of the Confederate armies, whose friends claim 
for him that he is a chivalrous, magnanimous, high- 
toned gentleman. Let him show that he had no 
knowledge of these barbarities, or having knowledge, 
had no power to prevent them ; let him show that 
he ever uttered to his soldiers or his government a 
word of remonstrance against them ; then, but not 
till then, may his claim to magnanimity, and the sym- 
pathies of his former fellow-citizens, and the compas- 
sionate regards of honorable and merciful men, be 
admitted. Judging from what we know of his posi- 
tion and his power, the record is, at present, a foul 
blot against his name. Let him wipe it out if he can. 
None will rejoice more than I, if he can do so. I wait, 
the country waits, the world waits for him to do it, ere 
the decision is made as to the estimation in which his 
treason, and his character as the great military chieftain 
of the rebellion, are to be held. As the record stands, 
the rebel government and leaders at Richmond have 
shown themselves base and cruel enough to be privy to 
this dastard deed of outrage and murder, but it is dim- 
cult to conceive that they were weak enough for that 
privity. All human experience, the history of all simi- 
lar crimes, would teach them that this would recoil upon 
themselves with a terrible vengeance and fearful retribu- 
tion, — would dishonor them before the world, make them 
and their cause infamous in the judgment of every civil- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 255 

ized government. They must have known, also, all the 
leaders and people of the rebel states, if not utterly 
bereft of reason, and blinded by passion, must have per- 
ceived and felt that the death of Abraham Lincoln would 
deprive them of the best and strongest friend they had 
at the North ; of the man whose disposition prompted, 
and whose office and influence would enable him to 
secure for them as large a forbearance, as generous and 
magnanimous a treatment as could possibly be granted 
to the authors of so much mischief, — the instigators and 
leaders in a political crime so gigantic in its proportions, 
its monstrous purpose defeated at such cost of blood and 
treasure to the nation. No ! There must be clearer 
proof before I can believe that the leaders at Richmond 
were so weak and bewildered as to be privy to this con- 
spiracy for assassination. There is no heart in the land, 
I apprehend, to which this terrible event will bring a 
sharper pang than to that of the President of the Con- 
federate States : a pang not of sympathy, but of fear ; 
because he will read in it the foreshadowing of his own 
doom, the closing of the gates of mercy against himself, 
should he ever be brought within the grasp of that gov- 
ernment whose laws he has defied, whose liberties he 
has trampled upon when he could, and whose existence 
he has attempted to destroy. 

But though there were no privity, — and for the honor 
of our common humanity, I hope it may be clearly shown 
that there was none, — a fearful responsibility rests upon 
the rebel leaders and government. This crime, " the 
deep damnation of this taking off" by assassination, 
runs back to them by the irresistible logic of cause and 



256 SERMONS ON THE 

effect. It is the natural product of the spirit and prin- 
ciples they have constantly manifested. It is the full and 
perfect out-flowering of that ignorance and passion, that 
rancor and hate towards the North which they have stu- 
diously endeavored to cherish in the southern heart. It 
is the last, culminating, decisive testimony to the debasing, 
morally bewildering, and unhumanizing influence of that 
institution of slavery which they would have made the 
corner stone of the political edifice they proposed to rear. 
The judgment of the world, therefore, the verdict of his- 
tory, I apprehend, will hold them largely responsible for 
a deed which secures to its perpetrator an unenviable 
immortality in the records of crime, gives his name 
a conspicuous place on the dark list of those around 
whose memories gather more and more, as the years 
roll on, the execrations of mankind. 

But let us turn from these thoughts. They would 
come up in my heart ; I could not prevent it. But I 
did not wish to keep them there ; I preferred to let 
them out, and so have given them utterance. We have 
been stunned by a sudden calamity, and stand aghast 
at the awful mode of its coming. In the midst of our 
cheerfulness, under the smiles of a brighter day than 
we had known for four years, and whose to-morrow 
promised to be brighter still, we have been suddenly 
thrown into utter darkness, by the foul murder of the 
President of the republic. Without warning or prepa- 
ration, we have been visited by what to our short-sighted 
wisdom seems an irreparable loss, and in a moment all 
our joy in " the victory of that day is turned into mourn- 
ing unto all the people" ; and again I urge that our first 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 257 

duty is to turn unto God and be calm, our only strength 
to have the thought of our hearts and the prayer of our 
lips, " the Lord's will be done." God is still with us, 
— here is the great consolation and help of the soul. 

"Human watch from harm can't ward us : 
God will keep, and God will guard us." 

Human wisdom, the prophet, the counsellor, the mighty 
man, may depart ; but the wisdom of God abides to 
illumine a new generation, and to guide his children in 
the way. From the beginning until now, and especially 
in the great struggle, which, notwithstanding this sore 
bereavement, we may still devoutly hope is approaching 
its conclusion, our land has received so many tokens of 
the divine favor, that to doubt the guardian care of God, 
and the merciful purposes of his providence towards this 
nation and the interests of liberty and humanity, so 
bound up with its preservation, would be a sin. We 
may still trust, it is our duty to trust, that behind this 
dark cloud there is wisely hid some great mercy, which 
shall one day be revealed amid the adoring acknowledg- 
ments of ourselves or our children. 

After this trust in God, our next duty is to cherish 
in grateful reverence the memory of the man and the 
magistrate whose, to us untimely, fate we mourn, and 
gather up the lessons which his example teaches and 
his death enforces. I am not adequate, had I time, for 
the presentation of the prominent points in his life, 
or a sharp analysis and delineation of his character. I 
remember, in the only interview I ever had with him, 
22* 



258 SERMONS ON THE 

in the autumn of 1861, at Washington, in company with 
twenty or thirty other persons, each of whom had his 
special purpose in the visit, and went up in his turn to 
present it, that I was at first amused, not to say offended, 
at what seemed an undignified levity, and a marvellous 
facility in conveying or enforcing his answers to the 
various requests presented, by telling some story, the 
logic of whose application to the case in point was 
unmistakably clear. During this part of the interview 
I was led to wonder where was the power ? how had this 
man so impressed himself upon the people of the coun- 
try, as to be elevated to the position he occupied ? That 
wonder ceased, that inquiry was answered, before I left 
the presence. A lady made application for the release 
of her brother, who had been arrested for disloyalty by 
the major-general commanding in the vicinity of Frede- 
rick, Maryland. The President declined to interfere, on 
the ground that he knew nothing of the circumstances 
but what she had told him, and that the arrest and de- 
tention were, necessarily, within the discretionary power 
of the major-general commanding in the district. Con- 
siderable conversation ensued, and some tears were shed ; 
and, at length, the President consented to indorse upon 
her petition, which was to be forwarded to the major- 
general, that he had no objection to the release, provided 
the general thought it compatible with the public safety. 
As he gave her back the petition, with this indorsement, 
he said, and I think I remember very nearly his exact 
words : " Madam, I desire to say that there is no man 
who feels a deeper or more tender sympathy than I do, 
with all cases of individual sorrow, anxiety, and grief 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 259 

like yours, which these unhappy troubles occasion ; but I 
see not how I can prevent or relieve them. I am here 
to administer this Government, to uphold the Constitu- 
tion, to maintain the Union of the United States. 
That is my oath ; before God and man, I must, I mean 
to the best of my ability, to keep that oath ; and, how- 
ever much my personal feelings may sympathize with 
individual sorrows and anxieties, I must not yield to 
them. They must all give way before the great public 
exigencies of the country ! " I shall never forget the 
simple majesty, the grandeur and force with which these 
few sentences were uttered, or their effect. In a moment 
the room was as still as death. The little audience that 
had, just before, been laughing at his stories, were awed 
and impressed, thrilled through and through by these 
few solemn and earnest words. They were a revela- 
tion of the man. They made me feel that there was 
a power in him that gave him a right to be where he 
was. That right he has vindicated more and more every 
hour since his first inauguration. That he has made no 
mistakes, that he was at all times superior to the weak- 
nesses of our nature, or the faults of humanity, it would 
be neither wise nor truthful to maintain. I look for 
light and explanation to be thrown upon some acts and 
incidents of his administration ; but I have confidence 
that that light will reveal reasons which will show them 
to have been wise and right, and establish a patriotic 
integrity of purpose that will do him honor. In general, 
the exhibition of himself, made these last four years, is 
proof to us, and to the world, that he was largely 
endowed with many large and noble qualities ; and for 



260 SERMONS ON THE 

his fidelity in his high office, for his wisdom, firmness, 
and moderation, for his genuine simplicity and homely 
ways, for his tenderness and compassion, his watchful 
guardianship of the great interests of liberty, and all his 
incalculable services to the country, which he has done 
as much as any man to save, I hold him in grateful 
reverence and honor ; and now that he has fallen, a noble 
martyr to a noble cause, coming generations will rise up, 
and bless his name, which will grow grander and brighter 
through all coming time, and stand highest among the 
names of those whom the world cannot afford to forget. 
In some lines from Tennyson's Ode on the Duke of 
Wellington, I find the most fitting description of his 
character and our duty to his memory : 

" O, friends ! our chief State oracle is mute ; 
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
The statesman, moderate, wise, resolute, 
Whole in himself, a common good. 
Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
Our greatest, yet with least pretence, 
Rich in saving common sense, 
And, as the greatest only are, 
In his simplicity, sublime. 
O voice, from which their omens all men drew, 
O iron nerve, to true occasion true, 
O fallen at length that tower of strength, 
Which stood four square to all the winds that blew. 
His life was work, his language rife 
With rugged maxims hewn from life, 
His voice is silent in your council hall 
Forever ; and whatever tempests lower 
Forever silent ; even if they broke 
In thunder, silent ; yet remember all 
He spoke among you, and the man icho spoke" 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 261 

But there is other work for us than remembrance. 
We may not dwell always on the past. The exigencies 
of the country, the duties of patriotism, the calls to be 
faithful in the great struggle to which the nation has 
been summoned, and which is not yet ended, these 
abide ; and the national calamity over which we mourn 
should be in all our hearts a quickening incentive to 
persevering effort. " God buries his workmen, but carries 
on his work." The individual dies, the generations pass ; 
but the interests of humanity remain, and the nation 
continues. Abraham Lincoln is dead. Peace be to his 
memory, and immortal his fame. But the President of 
the United States still lives, the embodiment of the 
nation's life and power ; and the first duty of patriotism 
now, — the duty to which this open grave around which 
the nation is standing gives a mighty emphasis, — is to 
gather around that President, and by the fresh, earnest, 
manly expression of our sympathy and confidence, give 
him strength and assurance for the high duties he is 
suddenly called to discharge. There is one dark hour, 
which he perhaps remembers with a keener sorrow than 
any of us. Is not a ray of light thrown upon that hour 
by recent events ? What one conspirator accomplished 
by a fatal pistol-shot, may not another in another instance 
have attempted through the poisoner's drugs, so that an 
incident of the fourth of March last, especially when the 
subsequent illness and prostration are considered, ought 
in justice perhaps to be interpreted not as a personal 
fault, but the crime of others ? This is clear : we are 
not to confound an accident with a habit, and our first 
duty — the first duty of the nation — is to let the new 



262 SERMONS ON THE 

President see that it remembers only, and recalls with 
grateful confidence, his undaunted loyalty, his noble 
efforts, his patriotic labors and sacrifices from the begin- 
ning of the war until now. As yet, he is to a certain 
extent an unknown quantity to us, as Abraham Lincoln 
was four years ago. It depends largely upon us, the peo- 
ple, to afford the elements that shall solve the problem, 
and determine what this unknown quantity is, its value 
and its power. Let the new President feel that he has 
the respect and confidence of the people, and it will help 
mightily to make him and keep him worthy of them. 
Let him feel that he has the respect and confidence of 
the people and it will be to him a great power, whereby 
to maintain the honor and glory, to secure the peace and 
prosperity of the nation. 

In conclusion, my friends, let me urge you to a 
personal improvement of this solemn event. While it 
reveals to us the depths of wickedness and of moral 
madness into which the soul may be plunged, it gives 
an impressive emphasis to the injunction, "Be ye also 
ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of 
Man cometh." Of what awaits us beyond the present 
moment, we know with certainty but this one thing — 
death. Exalted station, important services, noble useful- 
ness, the charge of public trusts and interests of un- 
speakable magnitude, these nor aught else can avail to 
stay the hand or avert the blow of death. In his 
presence and before his power there is a stern and 
solemn equality of all men. All must die. But how, or 
when, or where ? All inquiry is baffled, speculation is 
vain, reasoning at fault. In apparent peril, we escape ; 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 263 

seemingly secure, we fall. The President at Richmond, 
we feared. It was an exposure, but a beautiful and 
touching drama. Returned to Washington, we breathe 
freely. He is safe. Nothing can touch him in the 
capital. But there, unannounced, with no foreshadow- 
ing, the destroyer met him ; and, in a moment, of all 
that he had, and of all that he was, nothing is of import- 
ance to him, nothing stands him in stead now but his 
goodness of heart, the simple honesty of faith, through 
which he sought to do God's will and promote man's 
good. Our death, the death of any one of us, can never 
attract the attention, or be the great public event his 
was, but to ourselves personally it will be more import- 
ant and solemn ; and, like his, may come suddenly, when 
we least expect it. By holiness of heart and life, by 
consecration of ourselves through faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ to great purposes for which he suffered and 
died, by a daily walk in the light of his truth and the 
culture of his spirit, let us be ever ready, so that life, if 
prolonged, may be noble, useful, holy ; and death, when 
it comes, may be gain, — the gain of heaven and immor- 
tality. 



REV. EDWARD E. HALE. 



23 



1 CORINTHIANS XV: 57, 



Who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus 

Christ. 



The contrasts of Passion Week are those of human 
triumph, of death in agony, and of Eternal Life. 

The week begins with the Sunday of victory, — Palm 
Sunday, — when the Lord rides in triumph into the 
city. From day to day the triumph takes different 
forms, till on Friday the whole changes. His life ends 
at the hands of treachery and murder. Then comes the 
last of Jewish Sabbaths, — that Saturday sad beyond 
words. And then on this first day of the week, He 
rises : all the chains of earth are broken forever ; and, 
from that moment, man knows he is immortal. Human 
triumph ! Then, death in agony ! Then, the unveiling 
of Eternal Life. These are our contrasts. Hidden in 
them are our lessons. Never since has the world 
needed them as we need them this day ! 

Of their Sunday of triumph we cannot paint the 
picture, without recalling their year, as it had gone by. 
These apostles, who could not understand, could feel 
and wonder. They had walked up and down through 

(267) 



268 SERMONS ON THE 

the cities of Israel. They had proclaimed the new 
kingdom. They had named the King. Nay, they had 
heard him sometimes make fit promise of his empire. 
He had spoken of it as the one thing certain. He had 
laid down its constitution and laws. At his word 
thousands had followed. To his word thousands had 
listened. At his word, again, the multitudes had melted 
away. The very voice of God had testified that here 
was God's beloved Son. 

Yet there was, till now, no sign of empire ! He 
would not give a sign. If he fed these thousands, it 
was that they might leave him. His prophet, John, 
had been beheaded by a tyrant. His own overtures to 
the rulers had been rejected with scorn. We can 
imagine then the darkness which brooded over even the 
faithful's faith, till the Sunday of victory came. Then, 
after such anxiety, all seems changed. They have 
endured to the end. Surely now they are safe. 
Hosanna ! hosanna ! Victory ! victory ! Even the 
capital has opened its gates to us. Here are coming 
out its very children, with their palms and their songs. 
" The Son of David ! The Son of David ! Hosanna ! 
hosanna ! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
the Lord ! Hosanna in the highest ! " Thus the week 
begins. 

Easy to picture such exultant joy, when seen on a 
background of a year's defeat, anxiety, long-suffering, 
and gloom. 

Nor, as the week goes by, does their mood change. 
True, the capital can open its gates but once. There 
can be but one triumphal entry. When the enemy sur- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 269 

renders Sunday, he cannot surrender again on Monday. 
But the week seems victory ! Speculators and brokers 
are driven, crestfallen, from the temple. The lovers of 
the nation's enemies follow them, — the Herodians. The 
lovers of wealth ; they are driven out also, set to scorn, 
— the Sadducees. The hypocrites who exalt them- 
selves and curse the people, all are rebuked in turn, — 
the Pharisees. " Lord, what shall be the sign of thy 
coming ? " That question is key-note to the apostles' 
feeling, when the eve of Friday comes. 

And then, victory is changed in a moment into 
treachery, blood, and death ! 

Of his feelings we can say nothing but what he tells 
us. There is no likeness which we can compare to him. 
But, his enemies : ah, wicked men and mean men are 
so common, that we have seen them with these eyes. 
Whether they deal with the son of God, or whether they 
work in some mean cabal of their own lust, they are 
always the same. What the soldiery of Herod could 
not do ; what the officers of Caiaphas could not compass ; 
what Pilate was not mean enough to descend to, — 
could be wrought out, when that fatal Friday came, by 
this coward Judas, with his midnight kiss. Of Judas, 
the world has never known precisely what was his 
fate, or what his character ; whether he were finished 
villain, or whether he were fanatic fool. Satan chooses 
such accomplices. Such tool served the purpose 
of crafty Caiaphas ; and, by the work of such tool, 
even the Lord of Life can be betrayed. They seize 
him ; they lead him out to Calvary ; they kill him, 
the world's best friend ; nay, their best friend, if they 
23* 



270 SERMONS ON THE 

knew it ; the only friend in the Universe of God, 
who, at that hour, was seeking to save them. So that 
never were words so terribly true as the words of his 
prayer, — " they know not what they do." From the 
terrible retribution which came upon them so soon ; the 
retribution in which women drank the blood of their 
own infants ; in which brothers fought brothers to the 
death, in the ruins of their own temple, — he whom that 
day they slew was the only being who could have saved 
them. And so, praying for them, he died. 

And his mother and his well-beloved crept out from 
their hiding-places, and wept over him ! And they laid 
him in a tomb, wherein never man lay. And his 
enemies sealed the stone with such cements as man can. 
devise ; and set over it such sentry police as Roman 
wit in arms had trained. And then came the Sabbath, 
— the Jewish Sabbath, the last day of the week ; — 
saddest of days till then. 

" Is this the end ? " we can almost hear Nathaniel 
saying to Philip; "better I had staid brooding under 
my fig-tree ; my poet-dreams, so vague and dim, were 
yet better than this horrid certainty ! " " Is this the 
end ? " might Andrew say to Simon Peter ; " better we 
had swept the lake, — better traded fish in the market- 
place our lives long, than come to look on such 
horror!" "Is this the end?" might John, son of 
Thunder, say to his fierce, brother James. " Better had 
we cast in our lot with Theudas, rushed on the Roman 
spear and shield, and died in fight like men ! " "Is this 
the end ? " might Mary mother, whisper ; " better had 
my child died in his infant innocence, when Herod slew 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 271 

the others in Bethlehem." But no, this is not the 
end. 

" Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world." 

" The works that I do, shall he do also ; and greater 
works than these shall he do." 

Such is the promise. And when the sad Saturday 
has at last crept by ; and when the light of this darker 
morning just begins to break ; when, on that night, so 
cold, and black, there just creeps up the ray of promise, 
lo, it is a blush of hope ! The grave cannot hold him. 
These keepers fall fainting on the ground. This man- 
sealed rock rolls, tottering, from its bed. And he is 
risen ! as he said. 

He was the well beloved Son of God. Yes ; and we 
are all God's children. Children of God's nature, — 
and therefore immortal, as is he. We are his children. 
Children ? Yes ! and therefore he gives to us the 
victory. 

God is with us, and we are with him. Therefore 
there is no death to us, nor to his purpose failure. 
It may please him to call away even our Saviour 
from our sight. But if he goes away, the Holy 
Spirit comes ! It may please him to bring in his 
kingdom, as Israel has not dreamed. But, none the 
less certainly, does his kingdom come ! It may please 
him to win that victory by the Saviour's death on 
Calvary; nay, to give to a dying thief at his Saviour's 
side the first laurels of triumph. The victory may be 
won when Stephen faints ; when James is beheaded ; 
when Paul and Barnabas are stoned. But none the less 



272 SERMONS ON THE 

is it victory ! It is not upon fields of battle only that 
he asks for his martyrs. At the hands of Herod, 
dying of lust, he will call away St. James. At the 
wish of a dancing harlot, will John Baptist give his 
head. But they are martyrs still ! And when then- 
Master dies, because he has given a Judas the access 
to his person ; when, on the morning of this " day of 
days," he rises ; to all such martyrs, nay to all God's 
martyrs in all time, — to all their brethren — nay, 
to all his brethren, in all time, — God promises, that, 
while they will and do of his good pleasure, He will 
give to them the victory ! 

[The choir then sang the anthem, by Rev. Henry 
Ware: "Lift your glad -voices in triumph on high." 
After the anthem, Mr. Hale said:] 

I cannot think that it is necessary for me to try 
to illustrate the lesson of scripture. The contrasts 
which we have been tracing in the history, as we might 
have traced them last year or any year since that history 
passed, teach us the lessons of to-day, so that Ave cannot 
fail to learn them. We often tell you from the pulpit 
that there is no experience of your lives, however glad 
or however painful, however great or however small, for 
which you do not find fit lesson in these experiences of 
your Saviour's life. I do not know whether you always 
believe this. But I am sure you feel it and believe it in 
the great trial of to-day, — in these terrible contrasts of 
the week that has gone by. Sunday, our day of triumph : 
and, Monday, again, we thronged the temple here with 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 273 

our praises. Each day, a new victory ; each day a 
new congratulation; till, when Thursday came, — the 
fast day of our old Puritan calendar, — we did not know 
whether fasting belonged to us. Could the children of 
the bride-chamber fast indeed? Who were we that we 
should condescend to fasting and humiliation? 

My friends ! in the few words which I spoke to you 
on that day, — the last words which I spoke to you 
before this morning, — I said that Christian humiliation 
and Christian thanksgiving belonged together. We gave 
God the glory, which we dared not claim ourselves. 
"When I am weak, then I am strong." That is the 
Christian's ejaculation, and on that Thursday of victory 
and thanksgiving, it was very easy for us to repeat it ! 

It ought to be as easy to repeat it to-day! Would 
God it were ! Fasting and rejoicing are strangely min- 
gled indeed to-day. The day of a nation's grief is the 
day of the church's rejoicing. Fittest day of all, indeed, 
for the day of such grief; for, but for this resurrection, 
this immortality of which to-day is token and symbol, 
such grief were intolerable ! But for to-day's promise 
of victory, what should we have worth living for? It is 
not simply that this day assures us of the immortal life 
of the good, great man, who, in an instant, puts off this 
mortal body that he may put on his spiritual body. It 
is not simply that to-day tells us all is well with him. 
It is to the country, which he loved and served, that 
to-day, in its promises, gives a like assurance. That 
death has no power over the immortal spirit ; that is the 
lesson of to-day. That Jesus Christ gives victory to his 
flock, in giving them the help, comfort, and blessing of 



274 SERMONS ON THE 

the Most High ; that promise is sealed to-day. That 
the eternal laws of God reign in men's affairs, and that 
men may trust him if they Strive to follow those laws ; 
that is the promise of his victory. That the republic is 
eternal if it makes itself a part of his kingdom. If its 
laws conform to his laws, no cerements can bind it, 
and no tombs can hold it. If it serve God, God gives 
to it immortality. 

I dare not trust myself to speak a word regarding this 
simple, godly, good, great man, who, in a moment, has 
been called from the rule over a few cities to be master 
over many things, in that higher service where he enters 
into the joy of his Lord. To speak of him I must seek 
some other hour. Our lesson for to-day is, that the 
kingdom of God comes, and is eternal. The republic, if 
in simple faith it strive to make itself a part of that 
kingdom, lives forever. When we built this church, four 
years ago, we painted here upon the wall before you the 
beginning of the angels' song, in the words : 

" Glory to God in the highest." 

It was in the very outset of war ; our own boys were 
coming home to us bleeding from the field, or were lying 
dead after the battle. And we stayed our hands at those 
words. We did not add the other words of the promise. 
But when last Sunday came, with its glad tidings, when it 
seemed as if we had endured to the very end, we ven- 
tured, in the fulfilment of the glad prophecy, to complete 
our imperfect inscription, and to add here the rest of the 
blessed legend : 

"And on earth peace, good will toward men." 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 275 

The martyrdom of Good Friday does not make us veil 
the motto, though we read it through our tears. Of 
such martyrs, it is as true as ever, that their blood is the 
seed of the church. Because they die, the kingdom 
comes ! We do not forego our hope in the promise, 
" On earth peace, and good will among men." The 
President may be killed to-morrow, and his successor 
may be killed to-morrow, and his successor, and his ; 
but the republic lives ! While it seeks to do God's will, 
to will and to do of his good pleasure, He works with it, 
and gives it immortality. " Fear not little flock, it is 
your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 



REV. A. A. MINER 



24 



PSALMS LXXXIX: 18. 



The Lord is our Defence, and the Holy One of Israel 
is our King. 



Most welcome truth when the current of events seems 
sweeping us away. Scarce two short weeks ago, pow- 
erful armies were watching each other at the gates of 
the rebel capital, as a beast of prey watches his victim. 
The invincible army of Northern Virginia had been as- 
sailed in the terrible battles of the Wilderness, had been 
forced to retreat, day by • day, until they were driven 
within their intrenchments at Richmond, and, for nearly 
a year, had been held in the mortal grasp of the Federal 
power. By a constant tension of forces, and a steady 
pressure of military vigor, our Lieutenant- General had 
extended his left, threatening the rebel communications, 
until Petersburg and Richmond became untenable, and 
the news of their hasty evacuation, leaving behind five 
hundred guns and vast military stores, filled the whole 
North with joy and exultation. 

Hotly pursued by the cavalry of the eagle-eyed Sheri- 
dan, the retreating hosts were harassed on their flank 
and rear, depleted in numbers, despoiled of their weap- 

(279) 



280 * SERMONS ON THE 

ons and supplies, broken in spirit, and compelled to 
surrender, as prisoners, an instalment of a half dozen 
major-generals and thirteen thousand men. It was a 
prophecy of what a few days more of unflinching pur- 
pose would accomplish upon the foe. 

Scarcely had the echoes of this triumph died away, 
when the stillness of our Sabbath evening was broken 
by the news of final and triumphant victory in the capit- 
ulation of the rebel commander, and of all that remained 
of his traitorous hordes. From within the city of Rich- 
mond, our noble President sent despatches to Wash- 
ington, assuring the country that the rebel stronghold 
had surrendered, that the boastful army of treason had 
become a humbled fugitive, and, at length, a subdued 
and prostrate captive. Joy was unbounded. Gratitude 
surged in our hearts, like the heavy swell of the sea. 
Spontaneous assemblies burst forth in praise, rent the 
air with their acclamations, and pledged anew, everlast- 
ing fidelity to country and to .God. 

But, while the glorious hope of coming peace and of 
universal freedom was gladdening our dreams, we were 
aroused by another voice. Our noble President is 
dead, — died suddenly, — died by the hand of the foul 
assassin, — died surrounded by his friends, and in a 
public place. Terrible is the revulsion of feeling occa- 
sioned by this event. The public heart is paralyzed. 
We are cast down from the very summit of joy into the 
deep abyss of grief. Oh, how changed the aspect of 
the country ! Yesterday we were strong in the confi- 
dence we reposed in the best of earthly rulers. To-day 
man seems as nothing; less than a feather borne on 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 281 

by the breeze. We involuntarily feel after the Unseen. 
We listen for the echo of Jehovah's footsteps along the 
hillsides of our country. An audible voice from the 
heavens seems to say, " Be still, and know that I am 
God." 

It were vain, in this hour of excitement, to attempt a 
delineation of the good man's life. Born in a State 
which could by no means claim to be in the van of our 
civilization, of parentage in the narrowest circumstances, 
with only the rudest and most meagre instrumentalities 
for culture at command, he acquired but a very inade- 
quate education whether general or professional, and 
entered upon the practice of the law. In the great school 
of life he soon rose to eminence in his calling ; and the 
people of Illinois, in an hour of sharp political conflict, 
called him to bear up the standards of liberty. It was 
by his famous senatorial contest with the late Hon. 
Stephen A. Douglas for the championship of the State, 
that he became most favorably known to the country at 
large. They were accustomed to meet assembled mul- 
titudes, and, face to face, on the same day, canvass the 
principles to which they were respectively consecrated. 
I well recollect how deeply at the time I was impressed 
on reading those debates in a western paper, by the 
tone of candor exhibited by Mr. Lincoln, by his great 
tact in the conduct of his argument, as well as by his 
shrewdness of retort and quaintness of reply. The 
argumentum ad hominem was a favorite instrument with 
him, and was rarely employed in vain. His fulness of 
anecdote, so effective in quickening the pulse and cheer- 
24* 



282 SERMONS ON THE 

ing the heart, served a most valuable ulterior end, in 
compassing all the elements of a forcible argument, and 
carrying deep conviction to his auditory. 

It was from the conspicuous position he had thus 
gained, that he was called, in the providence of God, to 
the first place in the gift of the nation. You remember 
the great enthusiasm of the people as they skirted his 
pathway from Illinois to Washington. You remember 
his haii-breadth escape from the hand of the assassin as 
he passed through the notorious city of Baltimore. You 
remember the surprise of the dignitaries at the capital 
of the nation when they awoke of a morning, and found 
the "coming man" already there. You remember the 
meekness with which he has borne himself through these 
four long years of fratricidal strife. You have observed 
his condescension to all classes of persons, official and 
private, high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignor- 
ant, white and black. 

Nor is our admiration of this great man excited alone 
by his private walk and bearing. To the virtues of 
temperance, integrity, and honor, he has added the 
example of magnanimous and lawful rule. True, great 
needs have compelled great sacrifices, and we have 
reared our hecatombs of slain, and have poured our 
treasures without stint into the seething caldron of this 
rebellion. Great dangers have called for unusual meas- 
ures, — unusual in a country where peace is indigenous, 
and the citizens are strangers to the arts of war. But 
these have all been lawful and just. Whatever have 
been our judgments in the past, the voice of calumny, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 283 

at home and abroad, is now hushed forever ; and craven 
monarchs, strangers to his virtues, will henceforth sing 

"He 
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking off." 

But this crime is not solitary. The bayoneting of 
our colored prisoners of war, the tortures of death by 
slow starvation, the stripping of prisoners and exposing 
them to death by cold, the converting of the bones of 
the dead into amulets, the hanging of inoffensive citizens 
for opinion's sake, and a thousand other untold enormi- 
ties, bear it dreadful company. The foul institution of 
slavery is the accursed mother of them all. 

Not only is this crime not solitary, but it is not the 
crime of a single man. Whether the recognized con- 
spirators are few or many, the animus of the assassin's 
blow flows from a million hearts. It is found in that, 
wide-spread disloyalty that has brought upon the nation 
all the woes of a protracted civil war. The crime itself 
is but a single drop of the spray from the topmost wave 
of the rebellion. 

Hence it is a crime of startling magnitude. Loved as 
was our revered Chief Magistrate, an assault upon him 
is an assault upon the nation's heart. The constitutional 
head of the government, the executive power centred in 
his hands. The vast responsibility of our military and 
naval operations ; the condition of our internal relations, 
not undisturbed by the Indian tribes upon our borders ; 



284 SERMONS ON THE 

our judicial, postal, financial, and industrial affairs ; and 
especially the delicate and difficult duties growing out 
of our foreign relations, — all demanded, and received, 
his most careful and candid thought. The protection 
we enjoy in our homes, the continuous workings of our 
institutions, and the security we feel for the future, are 
all promoted by the fidelity of our now-lamented Pres- 
ident. To twenty millions of people he has been a 
leader in the darkest hour of civil war : to four millions 
more he has been a deliverer from the infuriated oppres- 
sor ; to yet eight millions more he has been an unrecog- 
nized saviour from utter extermination by their own 
suicidal passions. When the assassin deals a blow at 
such a man, and breaks into the citadel of life, he deals, 
at the same time a blow at the life of the nation itself, 
and, consequently, at the liberty and justice and equality 
which the nation represents. Such an act is most clam- 
ningly infamous in the eyes of men, and inexpressibly 
blasphemous in the eyes of God. Unhappy city that 
gave the assassin birth ! The home of disorder, the 
nursery of rioters, the shelterer of those murderers that 
shed the first Massachusetts blood in this great struggle, 
and now the mother of the nation's parricide ! Pity, 
oh, pity unhappy Baltimore ! 

Such a crime naturally begets sad apprehensions. It 
breaks down our confidence and stuns the public heart. 
It distracts and confuses the public mind. It produces 
a chaotic state of feeling incompatible with the duties 
of the hour, and unfavorable to unity of effort. The 
executive chair being vacant, some may fear that the 
affections of the nation will not so warmly welcome 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 285 

another occupant, especially as he will be a Southern 
man. The blindness of the South may give new suste- 
nance to the rebellion, and the leaders may be inspired 
(the Satanic influence seems sufficiently potent) to 
renewed and more vigorous efforts, taxing the energies 
and still further trying the patience of the loyal men of 
the land. The news of such a crime may unfavorably 
influence foreign governments. They little appreciate 
the unguarded freedom with which our magistrates 
mingle with the people. They may not at once compre- 
hend that this enormous crime is as foreign to the genius 
of our government and to the spirit of the loyal North, 
as is the accursed institution that inspired it. England 
may forget her gunpowder-plot of two hundred and fifty 
years ago, aimed at the destruction of the king and the 
whole parliament, and defeated alone by one of the con- 
spirators desiring to save a Romish lord. She may forget 
the unsuccessful attempts made upon the life of her noble 
Queen. France may forget that her military Emperor 
has been a target for the assassin 1 s pistol. And, forget- 
ting those and the like transactions, they may find it 
convenient to consider this great crime as a peculiar 
symptom of Democratic turbulence, and thus construct 
it into a barrier against Democratic tendencies in their 
own lands. There may be new danger of foreign com- 
plications on another ground. Murder knows no rank. 
Murderers at St. Albans, fleeing to Canada, have been 
treated simply as raiders and belligerents. Should the 
assassins at Washington make a similar escape, and 
find a similar welcome, what can save us from a new 
and terrible conflict? These and like considerations 



286 SERMONS ON THE 

will have different degrees of weight in different 
minds. 

For myself, I turn to the future full of hope. Dark 
as were the heavens yesterday, already the clouds begin to 
lift. The people will rally from this stunning blow ; not 
simply to the level of their former purpose, but to a more 
discerning and a more determined purpose. The pro- 
bable comprehensiveness of the conspiracy is baffled. 
However it may have aimed at the heads of several of 
the departments, it counts but a single victim ; others 
escaping by a seeming interposition of providence, 
impressing us with the truth that " the Lord is our 
defence ; and the Holy One of Israel our king." 

Perhaps we were in danger of forgetting this. The 
rebellion was manifestly waning: apparently breaking 
up. We had out-numbered the rebels, out-generalled 
them, out-flanked them, out-witted them, and whipped 
them. Were we not too confidently feeling that we 
owed it all to a few men ? Was not our trust too 
much in man, too little in God ? Did we sufficiently 
remember that the " Holy One of Israel is our King ?" 

Perhaps, also, we were too little disposed to be 
thorough in our work. The well-defined labor of war 
appears to be chiefly past. The difficult, the untried, 
the unprecedented task of re-construction is before us. 
Perhaps we had not the nerve for it; were not equal to 
the stern work of dealing with arch-traitors, of meting 
out punishment to leading rebels, and hanging wholesale 
murderers, as we would those of less criminality. Who 
can say that we have not had a lesson on this point ? 
Who can deny that the magnanimity we were cherishing 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 287 

has received a severe shock, and that we have been made 
to feel that we should deal with great villains as certainly 
as with small offenders, and far more severely? Some of 
our cotemporaries may, indeed, invoke endless perdition 
on the heads of these assassins of a nation's life ; and 
they as richly deserve it as mortals can. But between 
endless ruin and absolute exemption from punishment, 
there is a very broad margin within which the line of 
duty may fall ; and when we remember the very general 
inclination of the people, the various sects of religionists 
included, to mitigate the punishment provided by human 
laws, thus showing, on a broad scale, the popular notion 
of justice unwarped by religious theories, such inclina- 
tion may be regarded, within certain limits, as the voice 
of God, who always mingles mercy with judgment. 
Let us, then, with one voice, grant forgiveness to the 
ignorant and deluded, but now repentant masses, and 
demand expatriation or death for the ambitious, crafty, 
and fiendish leaders. Thus may we teach all future 
traitors the hazards of their enterprise, and their pro- 
bable doom. 

However such matters may be adjusted, let us not 
doubt that the people of this widely extended country 
will prove even more determined than ever. The insti- 
tutions of the land have lost none of their preciousness. 
They are not weakened by this sad event. The assas- 
sination of our honored President shocks all our hearts ; 
but it gives no shock to the machinery of government. 
All the heads of departments, and every member of 
Congress might be cut off, and we should spring to 
our feet, extemporize another government, and demon- 



288 SERMONS ON THE 

strata to the world that we live in institutions rather 
than in men. 

Why, indeed, should we be apprehensive ? The army- 
remains intact. Our military successes, under God, will 
continue. Our Lieutenant-General has been thoroughly 
proved, and bears with him the entire confidence of the 
nation. His forces are now within supporting distance 
of each other, while the army of treason is shorn of half 
its numbers, besides being dispirited and broken. Hav- 
ing accomplished so much, with the blessing of God, 
how can we fail to finish the work ? If there has ever 
been an hour when we have faltered in our purpose, that 
hour has now gone by. Henceforth we are a unit, whose 
energies are consecrated to the most patriotic service. 

And shall we not find a satisfactory leader in our new, 
let me say, God-given President. It is true he is as yet 
untried. But four years ago Abraham Lincoln was 
untried ; and the trial has endeared him to all hearts 
— has called forth a nation's gratitude in his re-election 
to the highest office in our gift, and made his death the 
occasion of a deeper and more general sorrow than we 
had ever before known. Who can say that his mantle 
has not fallen on one altogether worthy of it ? President 
Johnson, though untried in that office, is not unknown 
to the country. Through a long public career, his fidel- 
ity has been unquestioned. Born and reared in the 
midst of slavery, he knows its baneful influence and its 
crushing power. Cherishing in purest affection the 
Union and Liberty, he has felt the iron of secession 
enter his soul. Acquainted minutely and in detail with 
the spirit and purpose of the rebel leaders, he may be 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 289 

better prepared than Mr. Lincoln himself to estimate 
their deep demerit, and mete to them the meed of justice 
as traitors before the law. 

It is narrated of Mr. Johnson that, in October last, on 
an occasion of addressing some thousands of colored 
people in the city of Nashville, if I remember correctly, 
he exhorted them to patience, and assured them that 
God would raise up for them a Moses to lead them out 
of the wilderness. His auditors shouted, "You shall 
be our Moses!" Mr. Johnson modestly replied that 
he was not equal to so important a labor. But they 
repeated their claim, "You shall be our Moses; we 
want no other than you." "Well, then," said Mr. 
Johnson, " I will be your Moses." Was this incident 
prophetic ? 

I have rejoiced that our merchants and men of busi- 
ness, both in Boston and New York, have made haste to 
give him assurances of confidence and support. He will 
be surrounded, I trust, by the same experienced advisers 
who have stayed up the hands of his predecessor, and 
can command the same resources, and the support of 
the same constituency, as have borne us through the 
storm of the last four years. Shall we not all welcome 
him, then, to our hearts, and pray the blessing of God 
to be with him ? 

These are grave experiences through which our nation 
is passing. The discipline of a life-time is condensed 
into the lessons of an hour. The significance of all his- 
tory from the beginning of the world is in the events of 
the last few days. Can these events fail to bring us 
profit ? Can we fail to discern the dangers whence we 
25 



290 SERMONS ON THE 

are escaping ; the deep wickedness whence they sprang ? 
Can they fail to snatch us out of the ruts of custom and 
of customary prejudices, and to teach us, mid the sharp 
chastisements of the Divine hand, the dignity and the 
glory of right, and the fearfulness of injustice and wrong ? 
Can they fail to purify the nation's heart, and enlarge 
the promise of its coming glories ? Will they not tone 
down the rebellion itself, and make the leaders turn 
back from their purpose as from a fathomless abyss ? 

Who shall assign limits to the providential blessings 
which late events, victorious and tragic, may be made to 
yield ? A transcendentlygood man has been taken from 
us ; but other good men remain. Since " God is our 
defence," since " the Holy One of Israel is our King," 
we may affirm his continuous watchcare. The very 
existence of our nation seems providential. The great 
eras in our history reveal the divine purpose. But no 
period is equally instructive with that of the last four 
years. No work is more important or glorious than the 
emancipation of the slaves. No agent has been more 
conspicuously providential than Abraham Lincoln him- 
self. Startling, then, as is the manner of his death, 
who will exclude the event from the overrulings of the 
divine hand ? 

" God moves in a mysterious way, 
His wonders to perform." 

Providence does not skip events, or omit opportuni- 
ties. If the crucifixion of our Lord, through the malig- 
nities of the Jewish hierarchy, is made a means of the 
salvation of the world, is it too much to hope that the 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 291 

death of Abraham Lincoln, through agencies not less 
malignant, may be overruled to the good of our deeply 
afflicted country ? Called from us at the culmination of 
his fame, he may be more to us in the coming years, 
than he could have been had he still tarried in the flesh. 
He died as a martyr dies. 

" The voice at midnight came ; 
He started up to hear : 
A mortal arrow pierced his frame ; 

He fell, but felt no fear. 
***** 

" His spirit, with a bound, 

Burst its encumbering clay ; 
His tent, at sunrise, on the ground, 
A darkened ruin lay." 

Bowing here, at the altar of God, shall we not renew 
our zeal in the great cause of liberty and righteousness ? 
Standing upon those principles, which are the foundation 
of our national edifice, shall we not hold ourselves ready 
for every needed sacrifice, of time, of ease, of resources, 
of sweet life itself, if we may perpetuate the blessings 
which have been transmitted to us ? Especially should 
you, young men, and particularly those of you, who, 
through liberal culture, are seeking fields of widest use- 
fulness, enter in at the open door of opportunity, which 
the new order of things proffers you. A nation waits 
your service. Our country calls for help. " The Holy 
One of Israel " sanctions the call. In patriotic devotion, 
then, consecrate yourselves anew to the good of man and 
the glory of God. 



REV. JAMES REED 



ADDRESS.* 



The event which calls us together is unprecedented 
in the history of our country. It seems almost incredible 
that in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, and 
in this land of free self-government, so horrible a deed 
could have been perpetrated, as that which has taken 
from us, almost in an instant, our beloved and honored 
President. War is bad enough. It is tolerated by well- 
disposed men, only as a painful necessity. The nature 
and condition of mankind at present are such, that, so 
far as we can judge, certain evils cannot be removed 
without it ; and, as we have lately had abundant oppor- 
tunity to prove, individuals may be actively engaged 
in it without any revengeful or unkindly feelings. 
Yet, war, at best, is bad enough, and every good man 
must rejoice when its ends have been successfully 
accomplished, and a genuine peace is the result of it. 
But there are no terms too scathing to designate the 
bloody work of the assassin. It seems to be the very 
sum and substance of human wickedness. The blood 

* Delivered Wednesday, April 19, 1865. 

(295) 



296 SERMONS ON THE 

in our veins runs cold, as we read the harrowing details, 
— how the villain, armed to the teeth, pursues his inno- 
cent and unsuspecting victim ; watches his opportunity 
from day to day, and from hour to hour ; then approaches 
him stealthily from behind, and, all unseen, inflicts the 
fatal wound. When at last, rejoicing in his infamy, he 
shrieks out his exultant motto, it does, indeed, appear 
as if hell itself had broken loose, and were enjoying a 
momentary triumph. 

The unparalleled atrocity of the crime is heightened 
in the present instance by its striking contrast with the 
character of its victim. However much many may have 
differed from him on questions of political expediency, 
all men bear witness to his singular purity and tender- 
ness of heart. If he had been capable of intrigue and 
violence, — if he had shown signs of a vindictive and 
unforgiving temper, — this deed, terribly dark at best, 
would not have shown in such appalling blackness. But 
it is probable that he who was thus remorselessly shot 
down had not a single unkind feeling towards any one, 
The saying is in everybody's mouth, that those, on whose 
behalf this villany was done, have lost thereby their best 
friend. 

At this very moment the funeral obsequies are pro- 
gressing at the capital of the nation; and, by official 
invitation, all churches and denominations are contribut- 
ing their part towards them. It is for this purpose that 
we have now assembled here. 

There is no reason why we may not perform all the 
essential part of a funeral service. To be sure, the 
remains of the illustrious deceased are not with us. 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 297 

But that matters not. He who considers the subject 
will see, that the religious exercises in connection with 
a burial are never for the sake of him who has gone, 
but solely for those who remain. The departed spirit 
stands in need of nothing which men can do for him. 
He is entering upon a new and active life in the spiritual 
world. He has left his material body behind him. It 
is a matter of concern to him no longer. Nor are the 
realities of his spiritual existence in any way affected 
by the eulogies or prayers which may be uttered in this 
world. But if by means of them those who listen are 
lifted up to a higher and better state, so that they can 
more clearly 

" Assert eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to men," 

then surely the services have fulfilled their legitimate 
purpose. Hence it makes no difference whether the 
corpse is present or not. The religious exercises can 
be just as real and useful without it as with it. 

It is a doctrine of the New Church that the Lord is 
Love itself, and Wisdom itself; and has created all 
things from Divine Love by Divine Wisdom. Because 
He is Love itself, therefore has He created human 
beings to the end that they may become angels of 
heaven, and be conjoined with him in eternal blessed- 
ness. The infinite love yearned for that on which 
it could be bestowed, and by which it could be 
reciprocated ; and man was created. But, inasmuch as 
freedom is the indispensable condition of all genuine 
reciprocal love and all true happiness, therefore the 



298 SERMONS ON THE 

Lord made man a free agent ; and His constant effort 
with regard to him is to lead him to shun evil and do 
good in freedom. Yet he may abuse his freedom, and 
act in opposition to the Lord's wishes ; and so obtain 
eternal misery instead of blessedness. 

If we bear in mind this great principle, that the Di- 
vine Providence has for its object a heaven of angels from 
the human race, we can understand, in a general way, 
all the Lord's dealings with men By means of the 
various events which befall them from sources beyond 
their control, He designs to bring them into the highest 
degree of happiness which they are capable of. "The 
Divine Providence looks to eternal things ; and no 
otherwise to things temporal, than as far as they agree 
with things eternal." The Lord's view of events is not 
limited and contracted like ours. Not only does He look 
infinitely beyond the present moment, but, in all that 
He provides or permits, He has regard to the effect 
which is to be produced on every human being. We 
may truly say, therefore, that no event can come to pass 
except in the precise way which is best calculated to 
benefit all who are in any degree affected by it, either 
directly or indirectly, now or hereafter. The only con- 
dition imposed upon us is, that we should freely make 
use of the providential opportunities which, in His 
infinite wisdom, our heavenly Father offers. Unless 
we do so, we throw away the benefit which forms the 
chief part of His merciful designs. 

Accordingly, even this barbarous and inhuman work 
of the assassin has been divinely permitted for the good 
of our beloved country and of the whole human race, tc 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 299 



the end of time. By means of it, each and all of us 
may be strengthened, if we will, for the heavenly jour- 
ney. As for him who has been struck down, we cannot 
doubt that he, in his new abode, is inspired with the 
same trust in Providence which was so conspicuous a 
trait of his character while he was in the flesh. Nor 
can we doubt that he is able to see more plainly, by far, 
than he could here, the reasons why Providence leads 
mankind through such strange and devious paths. 

The Lord, I say, has permitted this shocking deed. 
But let us remember that He has not caused it. He is 
the cause of no evil whatsoever. But all evil has its 
origin in man himself, and is occasioned by the abuse 
or perversion of his divinely given freedom. No belief 
could be more false, than that the Lord put it into the 
heart of the murderer to do this thing. On the con- 
trary, His infinite love was extended over him, as it is 
over all of us, to lead him to put away the fiendish lust 
and thought which impelled him to the fiendish act. 
But he would not yield to any divine or heavenly influ- 
ence, working within and upon him. He listened to 
the voice of hell in preference to that of heaven. And 
the Lord, knowing what was best for all concerned, 
interposed with none of those events, which we call 
accidents, but permitted him to carry out his bloody 
purpose. The successful villany is no more wicked in 
itself than if it had been unsuccessful. As far as the 
spiritual condition of the criminal is affected, it is no 
worse than if his plot had failed. The murderer of 
the President is no more worthy of condemnation than 
the would-be murderer of the Secretary of State. But 



300 SERMONS ON THE 

as for the results, reaching far beyond the deed itself and 
the doer of it, what a wondrous difference ! Who can 
measure them ? Who can conceive of them ? Who 
can adequately estimate them even during the past week, 
if we take into account nothing more than what we have 
seen in our own immediate community ? And who can 
doubt that the Lord of love and mercy is directing, and 
will direct, them to His own infinite purposes ? 

That our heavenly Father provides good, and good 
only, for all of His children, must be clear to those who 
regard Him as infinitely good and wise. That at the 
same time He permits the existence of certain evils, is 
evident from the simple fact that they exist ; for how 
could this be without His permission ? 

It is a somewhat striking fact that the day on which 
this terrible deed was perpetrated, is celebrated by the 
greater part of the Christian world as the anniversary of 
the Lord's crucifixion. The Sabbath following is, in like 
manner, supposed to be the anniversary of His resurrec- 
tion. It matters little whether these suppositions are 
correct or not. The great truth remains the same, that 
the Lord was crucified, and that he rose again. So too, 
there is no event, however dark and sorrowful, which has 
not, if we but use it rightly, its day of resurrection, in 
which it re-appears, not in the same form, indeed, but 
transfigured; its aspect changed from deformity into 
beauty, from grief into gladness. So are the Lord's 
doings made acceptable, as well as marvellous, in our 
eyes. 

We may not, and doubtless do not, see clearly why 
the horrid events of the past week should have taken 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 301 

place. But surely we cannot question the goodness and 
wisdom of the Lord. "We cannot doubt the tender 
mercy of that Divine Providence which has so won- 
drously preserved us hitherto, and has apparently brought 
us to the end of this unnatural and distracting war. 
Our Heavenly Father is not changeable as we are. If 
he has been kind in raising up for us a great and good 
ruler, He has surely been no less kind in suffering him 
to be removed from us. 

•Certain it is that our President would never have been 
taken away, if he had not finished his appointed work. 
As for that work, the memory of it will live forever. 
A greater work is seldom performed by a single man. 
Generations yet unborn will rise up, and call him 
blessed. 

But, as for what remains, the true spiritual welfare of 
the country and of mankind, requires that it should be 
done by others. It may be that we need still further 
discipline and trial before the full measure of national 
prosperity can be allowed to us. Or it may be that he 
who was the best leader in time of war is not best fitted 
for the new exigencies which are arising. We cannot 
tell now, but we shall know hereafter. Our present 
duty is to trust. He who has guarded us hitherto will 
not fail us in the time to come. In the hollow of His 
hand let us rest, doubting not that if we strive to do 
©ur part, He will do His ; and though we now are sorrow- 
ful, our sorrow shall be turned into joy. 

The primary object in such services as these ought 
unquestionably to be, the effort to see and acknowledge 
as far as possible the guiding hand of our heavenly 
26 



302 SERMONS ON THE 

Father. But in the case of a public man, whose obse- 
quies are performed by an entire nation, there is also the 
further object of paying respect to him and his office. 
In the present instance, the office has been foully dese- 
crated by the impious hand of violence. For this reason, 
if for no other, the whole people would rise up as one 
man in the fury of their indignation. But now we have 
lost a magistrate, who, to the faithful discharge of his 
official duties, has added the most endearing of personal 
"characteristics. His uniform gentleness of heart, his 
almost womanly tenderness, his unaffected frankness of 
manner, and straight-forward simplicity of speech, have 
brought him wonderfully near to the hearts of his coun- 
trymen. We all feel to-day as if a father had been 
taken away from us. 

I shall not attempt any minute analysis of his char- 
acter. You all have a clear perception of the man ; for 
it was his nature to make no concealment of himself. 
Indeed, he was so transparent, that it seems almost as if 
we had had a personal acquaintance with him, even 
though we had never seen him. His acts and words show 
what he was, more plainly than any labored eulogy can 
do ; and I have thought that I could not show forth in any 
better way his purity of purpose, his disinterested patri- 
otism, his genuine reverence for the Lord and the Word, 
than by reading to you the inaugural address, which 
stands, and will forever stand, as his last words to the 
American people : — 

" Fellow-Countrymen : — 

" At this second appearing to take the oath of the 
Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 303 

address than there was at the first. Then a statement, 
somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed 
very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four 
years, during which public declarations have constantly 
been called forth, on every point and phase of the great 
contest, which still absorbs the attention and engrosses 
the energies of the nation, little that is new could be 
presented. 

" The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself ; 
and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encour- 
aging to all. With high hope for the future, no 
prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion 
corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were 
anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All 
dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural 
address was being delivered from this place, devoted 
altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent 
agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without 
war ; seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the 
effects by negotiation. 

" Both parties deprecated war ; but one of them 
would make war rather than let the nation survive ; 
and the other would accept war rather than let it 
perish, — and the war came. 

" One-eighth of the whole population were colored 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
located in the southern part of it. These slaves consti- 
tuted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that 
this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. 
To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was 



304 SERMONS ON THE 

the object, for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union by war, while government claimed no right to do 
more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 
Neither party expected the magnitude or the duration 
which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that 
the cause of the conflict might cease, even before the 
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier 
triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. 
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, 
and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem 
strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's 
assistance in wringing his bread from the sweat of other 
men's faces. But let us judge not, that we be not judged. 
The prayer of both should not be answered. That of 
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his 
own purposes. " Woe unto the world because of offen- 
ces ; for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to 
that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall 
suppose that American Slavery is one of these offences, 
which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but 
which, having continued through His appointed time, 
He now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North 
and South this terrible war as the woe due to those 
by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any 
departure from those divine attributes which the believ- 
ers in a living God always ascribe to Him ? 

" Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, 
if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled 
by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of 
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 305 

of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years 
ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether. 

" With malice towards none, with charity for all, with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up 
the nation's wound, to care for him who shall have 
borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a 
lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 



26* 



REV. GEO. PUTNAM. 



ADDRESS, 



What was mortal of Abraham Lincoln, President of 
the United States, is at this hour being borne to the 
grave. How are the mighty fallen ! He who but yes- 
terday was the top and crown of this vast political 
fabric, the peer of the world's foremost men and might- 
iest potentates, stricken by the assassin's hand, has 
fallen from that great height. His word of power is 
hushed ; his great heart, embracing a nation in its love, 
has ceased to beat. His body is given back to the dust 
as it was, and his spirit returneth unto God who gave 
it ; and the man who has filled so large a space in the 
eye of the world has ceased to be an earthly presence. 

The civil and military heads of the nation are burying 
their chief, at the capital, with such poor earthly pomp 
as befits his station ; and we, who are so far away, yet 
as near as they in love and grief, do join in the obse- 
quies ; we, and twenty millions more, bowing down our 
heads, as one man, in deepest sorrow and awe ; the 
whole land in mourning ; the drapery of woe festooning 
the breadth of the continent ; bell answering to bell, 

(309) 



310 SERMONS ON THE 

and gun to gun, from tower and town and hill top, from 
sea to sea ; a more than sabbath stillness fallen over all 
the cities and the plains and the mountain-sides of our 
vast empire. 

Verily, this funeral hour, so observed, is an hour 
filled with a solemnity, a sublimity, and a pathos, un- 
equalled in all the hours that we have lived, or that 
our fathers have told us of ; and such an one as might 
scarcely come to us again though we should live for 
centuries. 

It is an hour to be much observed unto the Lord ; and 
it was meet that we should come before his presence, and 
bow down, and seek his face in submission, in supplica- 
tion, and in trust, if so be the hour might not pass away 
without leaving its blessing. 

Friends, we will not give these flying moments to the 
indulgence of our sorrow, nor to vain attempts to express 
that sorrow. Deep grief does not readily betake itself 
to words : it rather craves the privilege of silence ; and, 
if forced to speak, it does but stammer in half-thoughts 
and broken utterance. It is the better way for us, the 
more manly part, and the more patriotic and more re- 
ligious, and a worthier tribute to the illustrious dead, 
to hush down the sobs of grief, and rise up into the realm 
of more tranquil meditation ; to remember the virtues 
and the services of the departed ; *to study the lessons 
that Providence sets for us in his death ; and gird our- 
selves up devoutly, bravely, for the work that is before us. 

I will not cumber this day's brief solemnities with any 
biographical detail or careful analysis. All is said in 
two words : Abraham Lincoln was a good and a great 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 311 

man. He must have had faults, and he must have 
committed mistakes, for he was a man. But his worst 
enemy, — if, indeed, he had any enemy, except his 
murderer, and those whose system of war, conceived in 
treason, blazing in rebellion, and graced with thousands 
of slow murders in the prison-house, has at last inspired 
the heart and nerved the arm of the assassin, — except- 
ing these, his enemy, if he had one, would not wish to 
have his faults recounted, here, as it were, beside his 
opening grave. Therefore, it is no matter that the 
speaking of these funeral words has fallen to the lot of 
one who has loved him with such a filial, grateful, and 
reverent love, as never to have been able to see any 
faults in him, and who confided in him with such 
perfect confidence as never to discover his mistakes. 

A good man. I catch no voices of dissent on that 
point, and never did, even in those dark days of national 
adversity, when the heart of the people seemed to be 
falling away from him. A conscientious and upright 
man. Just and true in every known act and word of 
his life. God-fearing, God-serving ; just and faithful ; 
anxious unto prayer to see his duty and to do it. And 
a warm-hearted man, disinterested, devoted ; tender- 
hearted as a woman, gentle as a child ; loving his 
country with his whole heart, and yet room enough in 
that heart for kindness to the humblest fellow- creature, 
and compassion for every sufferer ; but with no room 
for one malignant or vindictive feeling towards his own 
or even his country's foes. If he could have had a 
moment's consciousness, after the accursed blow was 
struck, who will doubt that the sublime words of the 



312 SERMONS ON THE 

Son of God would have been on his lips and in his 
heart, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do." 

This conjunction, of so childish a simplicity, so gentle 
and unselfish and tender a spirit, with imperial powers 
and functions, is so new a thing in the history of 
nations, such a strange spectacle to the world, that the 
world has not known what to make of it, and has yet 
to grow up to an appreciation of the unequalled beauty 
and majesty of it. 

A good man, and as great as he was good. I know 
not that I could tell, if the occasion required it to be 
told, just wherein his greatness lay, or where was the 
hiding of his power. 

The eye of the nation was first turned to him in that 
great debate which he conducted in Illinois, some six 
years ago, against an adversary who was regarded, 
perhaps, as the ablest and most skilful debater then 
known in the public councils of the country, — Judge 
Douglas. In that debate the great issues of the time 
were entered on fully, and to their utmost depths. Mr. 
Lincoln bore his part in it with such noble candor and 
self-possession, such breadth of views, such clearness 
and power of statement, and such masterly logic, that 
he became henceforth a marked and representative man, 
and could never again become anything less. 

Since that time, whoso has been left to speak of 
Mr. Lincoln in slighting terms, as an ordinary man 
accidentally raised to power, shows himself forgetful, or 
but poorly read in the forensic history of the few years 
preceding the war. 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 313 

Many persons make great account of the manners and 
personal bearing of eminent men, and not without some 
reason, for manners are an index of the mind. 

In private circles, in hours of social converse and re- 
laxation, there was undoubtedly in the President a 
freedom and a homeliness of manner, that showed other 
breeding than that of courts and fashionable assemblies. 
For he was a genial, humble, kindly man, all undazed 
by power and place, utterly devoid of egotism, and 
almost of personal consciousness, and unaffectedly re- 
garding every man he met as his full equal before God. 
Yet, where or when, in any public place or function has 
he been found wanting in the stateliness and gravity 
that befitted his rank ? 

Our own consummate Everett, . himself the embodi- 
ment of grace and dignity, has declared, that on the 
occasion of the funeral solemnities of Gettysburg, where 
were met together on the platform, and at the table, our 
own most eminent men, and the ambassadors of foreign 
courts, there was no man there who bore himself, or was 
capable of bearing himself, with more propriety and 
true dignity, than the President. And Gold win Smith, 
the candid Englishman, said that not a sovereign in 
Europe, however trained from the cradle for state pomps, 
and however prompted by statesmen and courtiers, could 
have uttered himself more regally than did the plain, 
republican magistrate, on that solemn occasion. 

Passing from mere manners, to official words, I think 

there is no potentate nor minister of state living, or who 

has lived in this century, who has spoken so many words 

so terse, so strong, so genuine, that history will make 

27 



314 SERMONS ON THE 

imperishable, as has Abraham Lincoln. I quote with 
pleasure the saying, not of an American partisan, but of a 
cold, critical, unsympathizing Briton, respecting the last 
inaugural address of the President, that it is "a state 
paper which for political weight, moral dignity, and 
unaffected solemnity, has had no equal in our time." 

Of those intellectual faculties, which have constituted 
Mr. Lincoln's greatness in the administration of the 
Government, I can speak now only in the most general 
terms. It was not genius, inspiration, brilliancy : no 
man ever used those words in connection with his name. 
There was in him, the shrewdest common sense, a deep 
sagacity intuitive and almost infallible, though not 
rapid nor flashing. He had a strong grasp of principles, 
great patience of investigation, and a sound, sure judg- 
ment. These are not the shining powers of the human 
mind ; and yet, wherever they are largely possessed, and 
happily combined and balanced, they go to constitute 
greatness, and produce the effect of greatness in any 
sphere of human action. They border close upon the 
moral qualities, and it has never yet been metaphysically 
shown to what extent high moral qualities combine with' 
the intellectual ones to strengthen, enlighten, and direct 
them, so as to produce greatness of thought, action, and 
result. We cannot define how far a living, sleepless 
conscience, a sacred, singlehearted regard for truth and 
right, a fixed devotion to a noble end and purpose, a 
fervent love of country and of humanity, an unswerving 
fidelity to trusts, and a devout fear of God ; — we 
cannot tell in what proportions these qualities have con- 
tributed to set the stamp of greatness on the name and 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 315 

life of the President. Neither can we so far penetrate 
the mystery of spiritual laws as to tell how far, or in 
what way, the spirit of the mighty God, who holds the 
hearts of all men in his hand, and by whom princes 
rule, comes to those who piously seek it, and humbly 
welcome and trust in it, and enters in by its secret course, 
to inspire, assist, and lead the Lord's anointed in the 
discharge of their great and solemn function. We only 
know that the men who have achieved the greatest things 
in any age, have been those who have been ready to say 
in such dialect of faith as they had attained to, Not 
unto us, O, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the 
glory. 

But what need of these inquiries ? Look at what 
this man has done. He is great in the greatness of that. 
A stupendous work was given him to do, and he has 
accomplished it. Called, in God's providence, to a lofty 
destiny, he has gloriously fulfilled it. Placed on a pinnacle 
high as any earthly height, in the world's full view, he 
has won the world's respect and honor. He came to the 
capital, four years ago, and found it reeking with treason 
in all its departments, threatened on every side by 
gathering hordes of rebels, and the very roads leading 
to it lined with banded assassins ; he leaves it to his 
successor, purified, fortified, impregnable as any seat of 
empire on earth ; and not an enemy near it, unless it be 
another murderer lurking in its dark places. 

Inheriting from his predecessors the seeds and neces- 
sities of a civil war of such vast dimensions and such 
intense malignity, he has conducted that war and fought 
it out through weary years, through seasons of darkness 



316 SERMONS ON THE 

and discouragement; threatened with reaction among 
the loyal, threatened with bankruptcy and every form of 
national exhaustion, with foreign intervention, — he has 
fought it out to a complete and final victory. The rulers 
of Europe told him he was trying to do the impossible : 
well, then, he has done the impossible. When he took 
his seat of power, he found the nation drifting towards 
disintegration and anarchy, division and subdivision, the 
abyss out of which only could proceed ruin and eternal 
strife ; and he leaves it compacted in unity, and power, and 
more imperial than ever before. The ship of state was 
strained in every joint, and crashing in the breakers, 
and the great seas going over her, and the skies were 
black with tempest, and the crew was in mutiny, and 
the wisest knew not what to do, and the bravest blanched 
with fear. Then this unknown and untried man comes 
forth at the call of the all-wise Providence, which guides 
and overrules the choice of men, and, with his eyes raised 
to heaven, lays his firm hand on the helm. And behold, 
now, the goodly ship rides at her anchors, and rests 
beautifully on her shadow ; and he, the helmsman, stands 
confessed before the world as the pilot that weathered 
the storm. Firm and unwavering throughout, whoever 
might falter or play false, he has crushed the gigantic 
rebellion. Its power of resistance is broken, and on the 
verge of annihilation, and the day-star of peace is rising 
in the eastern heavens ; and behold, now, it is accompa- 
nied, as it never has been before, with two glorious 
attendants, — so new, so beautiful, — namely, absolute 
and impregnable Nationality, and universal Freedom. 
If to have done this is not greatness, what is great- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 317 

ness among men? If he who has done this is not great, 
who is great among the living or dead of all ages ? 
Shall we apply the title great to the man who composes 
a treatise or a poem, who invents a machine, who argues 
a cause, who wins a battle, or takes a city r Truly we 
may sometimes. But so applying the title, do we with- 
hold it from the man who saves a nation ? who, by the 
guidance of his mind and the strength of his arm, raises 
it up from the verge of destruction, leads it through its 
night of gloom, its wilderness wanderings, its seas of 
blood, and places it at last erect on the supreme heights of 
power and peace and glory ? Truly, I think when the 
history of this era is written, and our posterity shall read 
it, and burn, as they will, with the admiration and the 
inspiration it kindles, they will marvel to learn, that, in 
the time of these great events, there was in any mind a 
blindness and narrowness that could so much as raise a 
question of the surpassing greatness of Abraham Lin- 
coln. 

From his work so accomplished, this man, so great 
and good, has gone to his rest, and his great presence 
has faded from our sight. He, the saviour of his coun- 
try ; he, who has so watched and toiled for us ; our 
head, our guardian, our best earthly stay and staff, is 
fallen powerless and dumb ! Oh, the bitterness of the 
grief ! Oh, the immeasurable loss ! Would God he had 
lived, our yearning hearts cry out, — lived, if it were 
only to come forth among his people, that we might 
throng his presence, and tell him of our love and rever- 
ence, and weave for him our garlands of honor and 
thankfulness, and call down heaven's blessings on his 
27* 



318 SERMONS ON THE 

head, and see if we could not do something to make him 
as happy as he was good and great. But our prayer is 
denied, and we must submit ; and we will, meekly, devout- 
ly, God helping us. 

And, indeed, apart from the yearnings of love and 
sorrow, rising to the height of calmer thoughts, can we 
not almost see already that God's time is the right time, 
and that this death was not untimely ? He lived to see 
the work assigned to him substantially accomplished, 
and to witness his country's triumph. The measure of 
his fame was full. There awaited him, had he lived, 
duties less arduous, indeed, but harder for his tender 
heart to perform. It needs not a better or a 
greater man, but a sterner nature and a more iron 
hand than his, to do what yet remains to be done. God 
in his mercy has spared him the severe necessities that 
will soon press upon his office. He has gone amid the 
satisfactions of success and the rejoicings of victory, and 
the loud plaudits and affectionate appreciation of his 
countrymen ; gone in a moment, and without a pang, 
from an earthly joy and glory to an heavenly ; ascended 
into the bosom of his God, to whom he had lived so near 
in firm obedience and pious trust on earth. Peace be 
with him, the peace of God, which passeth all under- 
standing. 

Though dead, he yet speaketh. Though gone, he is 
still here. His memory and influence abide in his coun- 
try's heart forever. 

The visitation, so solemn and sad, while it dissolves 
us in tears, must also arouse us to our responsibilities, 
and brace us to our duties. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 319 

First, not his gentle and forgiving heart, but the 
sacred instinct of eternal justice, implanted in us by 
our Maker, demands, in his name and in God's name, 
that the whole earth be searched, in every nook and 
corner, if need be, for the fiendish murderers, that they 
may make to an afflicted nation and an outraged hu- 
manity the poor atonement of their accursed lives. 
Hell is agape for them ; or, though God have mercy 
on them (which we will pray for), man cannot. 

And not they only, but the spirit that has bred so 
many enormities, that has so long and in so many ways 
struck at the nation's life, and has only shown its full devel- 
opment in striking down the nation's head, must perisb. 
The new President — God bless, preserve, and guide him — 
is right. That spirit, together with the foul slave-system 
that engenders, embodies, and perpetuates it, — that 
spirit, which is a murderer from the beginning, and 
forever will be while it survives, must be crushed into 
the earth. Justice is as divine a principle in God and 
in man as mercy. An unfit clemency to guilty indi- 
viduals is cruelty to innocent millions and to unborn 
generations. 

Not from the kindly lips and tender heart of Lincoln 
do we derive these stern counsels of duty ; but from his 
gaping wound and flowing blood do we take them, and 
must heed them. 

The awful duties of retribution rest, where they best 
may, with the law and the magistrate ; and there we leave 
them in strong and faithful hands, I do believe. 

And yet there are duties for the humblest citizens. 
We must raise higher, and hold firmly up, the standard 



320 SERMONS ON THE 

of loyalty. The country that has been saved to us, given 
back, as it were, from the jaws of destruction, must 
now be devotedly loved, and jealously watched for, and 
guarded by all its people. No more careless paltering 
with treason and half-loyalty, North or South. Our 
grand and happy nationality, restored and rehabilitated, 
is henceforth our most sacred trust from God ; and the 
arm that is lifted against it, be it palsied rather ; and the 
false tongue that would profane its majesty by a word 
of treason, or of sympathy with treason, be it struck 
dumb ere it speak. Whoso does not love his country 
is unworthy to live in it. Let the people this day, 
bending in tears over the bier of their beloved chief, 
let them register in their hearts the solemn decree, 
that they will hold their country so dear a possession 
and so holy a trust, that they will not permit a drop 
of the deadly virus of disloyalty to circulate in its veins ; 
and that traitors, and the apologists and supporters of 
traitors, must not share its blessings, nor enjoy its 
protection, nor so much as breathe its air. Tens of 
thousands of our dearest and our noblest have died to 
save it, and our great chief has died, because he had 
saved it; and shall not we, who are spared to enjoy it, — 
shall we not swear by that sacred blood, his and theirs, 
that henceforth we will love it with all our hearts, and 
live for it, and watch for it, and devote ourselves and 
all that we are and have to it, hold its enemies as our 
enemies, and have no friends that are not its friends, 
and love none that do not love it ? 

Perhaps at this moment, while we speak, they are 
lifting up the remains of our noble patriot, deliverer, 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 321 

martyr, to bear them from his palace-home to the dark 
and narrow house. In such a moment, of so great 
solemnity and tenderness, let the sacred fires of patriot- 
ism blaze up bright and aloft in millions of hearts ; let 
hand clasp with hand in a solemn league and covenant 
of loyalty, and all true souls renew their vows of devo- 
tion to the country which he loved, and lived for and 
died for ; and make that country, in its unity, its 
grandeur, and its peace, a fitting monument to his 
memory, worthy to record his earthly fame, and accept- 
able to the contemplation of his glorified spirit. 



REV. GEO. L. CHANEY. 



JOHN XIV: 19 



Because I lite, ye shall live also. 

Great lives are never finished; least finished when 
the grave relieves them of their mortal part. Their biog- 
rapher only drops his pen at the open sepulchre, because 
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man 
conceived the glories that succeed ; or because his search 
is baffled as he seeks to trace the growing influence of 
these ransomed lives upon the thoughts, the habits, the 
principles and actions of an attentive posterity. Modern 
scholars have sought to discover a philosophy of history 
which should introduce into the reading of the history of 
man the precision of natural science, and enable them 
to predict the future as they review the past. Race, 
climate, physical environment, all external conditions of 
the human lot, and each new discovery of human wit, 
have been ascertained to affect the history of man ; but 
no sufficient philosophy of human history has been 
reached, where the most potent factor in the problem 
refuses to be classified. The great man is the controlling 
power, and he cannot be anticipated. Guizot calls the 
appearance of a special great man, at a special time, 
28 ( 325 ) 



32 G SERMONS ON THE 

"the secret of Providence/' — "The great person, the 
great man," says another, •' is the miracle of history." 

The only prophetic history which deserves the name, 
that of the Hebrew prophets, turns with inspired truth 
to the great person. " His name shall be called ' won- 
derful, counsellor,' " and " the government shall be upon 
his shoulder." 

The only good and sufficient biography, also, is to be 
found in the same sacred volume. For in the successive 
books of the New Testament, the life of Jesus Christ is 
given with a fulness that recognizes the truth we main- 
tain. The biographers of Christ do not leave him in the 
grave, as if death were the end of life. To them was 
revealed, by the will of God, something of the glory that 
succeeds death ; and in the re-appearance, further teach- 
ing, and final ascent into the heavens, of their Master, 
they describe his victory over death and the grave, and 
immediate entrance into the life eternal in the heavens. 

Nor does the record end here ; but, running over into 
the Acts of the Apostles, it shows how the life of Christ 
on earth was taken up and carried forward by His imme- 
diate followers. And, preserving the missionary epistles 
of apostles, it further shows how foreign nations felt its 
power and followed in its footsteps. 

Taking the New Testament as a unit, it is the only 
good and sufficient biography ; because it not only pre- 
serves the separate details of the thirty years of the life 
of Christ on earth, but follows him beyond the grave, 
adding that most glorious leaf from the Lamb's Book of 
Life, and then traces in the lives of his near posterity 
the quickening influence of his Master's spirit and life. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 327 

"Because I live, ye shall live also." If Jesus had 
designed to state the universal condition of life, he 
could not have chosen fitter words to express his mean- 
ing. Till we reach the spring of life, — the self-existent 
God, — every living thing implies a living author. And 
when we reach that life of the spirit, that higher life, 
which has no better definition than "energy of love, 
divine or human," they have it not, who will not confess 
that it was inspired in their hearts by some kindred life 
in another. Often, most often indeed, the awakened 
soul can gratefully remember the name, the word, the 
act of its awakener, and can recall the occasion of its 
waking. 

Always some vitalizing word or deed of a living man 
or woman has kindled them into life. " Thou art Peter," 
says Christ, "and on this rock I will build my church." 
Signifying that men and women animated by the Christian 
spirit, speaking and acting out of their original concep- 
tion and interpretation of the gospel, were to constitute 
the lively stones of his church edifice. 

Only life is life-giving; and the more it gives, the 
more it has to give. Therefore I said, " Great lives are 
never finished." Therefore it is, that the life of Christ 
can never be written in briefer form than in the life of 
Christendom. For apostolic zeal and constancy, word of 
preacher, prayer of saint, fidelity of martyr, patience in 
suffering, comfort in sorrow, strength in temptation, 
confidence in death, all the grand and beautiful virtues 
that have graced Christian biography, acknowledge in 
Jesus, the Christ of God, their inspiration and support. 
Because he lived, they have lived also ; and the followers 



328 SERMONS OX THE 

of Christ will never lose the holy emulation excited by 
that one perfect life, till they all "come to the measure 
of the stature of the fulness of Christ." If the life of 
Christ could be studied in its effects, even if we could 
search no farther than to the direct influence of the 
New Testament record, doubtless it might be said with 
literal truthfulness, of these things which Jesus did, if 
they should be written every one, even the world itself 
could not contain the books that should be written : with 
such fulness has history verified that word of Christ, — 
" Because I live, ye shall live also." We find in these 
words a profound statement of the law of spiritual 
vitalization ; and, although their brightest illustration 
is given in the life and influence of Jesus Christ, the 
special application of their first statement by him can- 
not conceal their large and universal significance. Life 
is life-giving ! with only this, the most natural and self- 
evident interpretation of the text, we may venture to 
take up the burden of this day. 

How shall I speak of him, the mention of whose name 
a few days ago, made our hearts glad and hopeful ? This 
is no time for eulogy. All speech is so feeble in the 
presence of the national grief and indignation, that I 
would choose to be a silent worshipper with you, while 
each should listen to the solemn preaching of the event, 
as his own heart might inly interpret it. But since the 
occasion, and your general expectation, not unfairly de- 
mand speech, I will try so to speak as not to disturb 
your hearts' conference with its own bitter grief. 
Prayers, spiritual song, and hallowed word of Holy 
Writ, must take, for the hour, the ministry of consola- 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 329 

tion. In the words that I shall say, I am as one just 
bereaved, who can only repeat the virtues of the dead, 
and mourn. 

He was a faithful husband and a kind father. All his 
virtues were homebred, and a domestic sweetness fla- 
vored his public acts. He was too much a father to 
conduct the pitiless discipline of an army. If a tired 
boy fell asleep on guard, he had not the heart to have 
him shot. Perhaps he was thinking of his own son, 
his Isaac, whom God has since rescued from the sacri- 
fice of war, and restored to him, and in whose bright 
description of the recent glorious victory, Robert's father 
and our country's father took such honest pride, only 
the day before he died. Or, perhaps, he thought of his 
youngest, the little Benjamin of his home, the boy ever 
at his side. I have read nothing more sad, among the 
scenes of that saddest chamber death ever entered, than 
this. " Little Thaddeus will not look upon his father." 
Oh, with what poison did treason's malice inflame the 
dull temper of the fatal lead, that it could unman such 
a father, and estrange such a child ! 

He was kind and forgiving, forgiving to a fault (some 
have thought and said). But, my friends, if forgiveness 
be a fault, methinks saints, not sinners, should make 
the discovery. Our good President never knew, never 
could know, the wickedness and spite of the enemies of 
his country. We never knew them till they placed him 
beyond the fatal knowledge which this day we know. 
I say the " fatal knowledge;" for unless heaven forefend, 
the act which has opened the eyes of this people, till 
they stand out with horror, may wake such rage, hot 
28* 



330 SERMONS ON THE 

indignation, and vindictive fury, in the breast of an ex- 
citable army and populace, that crime shall fall on crime, 
and the triumphant nation shall smear its garments with 
the bloody fingers of revenge. Abraham Lincoln never 
knew, while he lived with us, the hatred that ^vas in the 
rebellious heart. I thank God that his tender heart has 
not been wrung and torn as ours has been, by the human 
contemplation of enmity's last curse. I thank God that 
if such depravity can be known by ransomed souls, the 
knowledge has come to him where love has no limitation, 
and where forgiveness is no fault. 

In life, as every act shows, he was as little conscious 
of the spirit that fired the Southern heart, as at the last 
he was of the murderer's presence. When he left his 
Western home, four years ago, he sowed peaceful 
promises, of which his sincere soul was full, all along 
the route Eastward ; and his first word in the Capitol 
was an anguished appeal in the form of a most tender 
remonstrance : " We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies", he said. He was scarcely better 
schooled in enmity when he died. He could not learn it. 
He who so easily forgave injuries could not comprehend 
a hatred which had no injuries to forgive ; a hatred 
which, with Jewish malignity, hated him because he was 
a Christian, and clamored for its bond. 

He had a working religion, which believed that God 
helped those who helped themselves to right ends. He 
said, and said devoutly, "God is over all"; but he 
added, "We must diligently apply the means." He 
had not profited so little by his pioneer life, as to wait 
for the lightning to plough his land or the whirlwind to 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 331 

fell his trees ; but he took the instruments that were at 
hand, the plough and the axe, and having well used these, 
he trusted to God for the increase. We must do our 
best, if we desire the best gift of God. In the practical 
application of this religious principle, he was never 
remiss and never discouraged. 

He saw clearly that there were moral results from 
every act, but over these he disclaimed having any 
power. Men could not restrain, or much increase them, 
he said. 

But he was sagacious enough to see that these moral 
results would, in process of time, work a change of 
policy in the administration of a people's government, 
and he doubtless kept equal pace, at least, with the 
advancing moral sentiment of the people. 

The acknowledgment of a controlling Divine Power, 
was a frequent and sincere expression with him. He 
never forgot it, from the day when he parted from his 
Springfield home, and said to his friends there, " Pray 
for me," to the closing days of his life, when he ascribed 
all glory unto the wonderful providence which had 
guided the events of his administration. God was his 
Counsellor, but man was his instrument. He could 
counsel with God ; he must work with man : and he 
showed a practical good sense in the use of his instru- 
ments. 

Some have blamed him because he seemed to be so 
distrustful of committing his government to the policy 
which most engaged his moral approbation ; the policy of 
emancipation : but events have showed that he only 
bided his time. He thought, if God could wait a 



332 SERMONS ON THE 

hundred years for the destruction of American slavery, 
man might wait a hundred days. 

The real cause of this delay, however, was his respect 
for the Constitution. He was scrupulously true to his 
oath to support that. He spoke of himself, in homely 
phrase, as of one who had engaged to do a job, and who 
felt morally obliged to do it well, according to the terms 
of the agreement, viz, the Constitution; and history 
will declare that there never was a President who took 
more conscientious pains to be faithful to constitutional 
government. 

All his public documents, and all his published letters 
and speeches, bear witness to his fidelity to the Consti- 
tution as he understood it ; and surely any construction 
less liberal than he put upon it, and any milder exercise 
of its war powers, would have exposed that instrument 
to the ridicule of the world, and flung us into the ancient 
chaos of disunited States. He suffered for long the moral 
disapprobation of men whom he profoundly revered, 
because of his delay in assuming the power conferred by 
war, to abolish human slavery; and when the proclama- 
tion of emancipation came, his impressive benediction 
commends it not simply as an act of justice, but of wise 
policy and constitutional validity : 

" Upon this, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, 
warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I 
invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the 
gracious favor of Almighty God." 

He was honest from the first, and lived so, four years, 
in Washington. His fairness in dealing showed itself in 
repeated offers of compensated emancipation to the Slave 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 333 

States ; in temperate delays and profitable warnings ; in 
a hundred days of grace, before the consummate word 
was spoken that made us free. 

A winning frankness made it impossible to double- 
deal with him. He made short work with all super 
refinements, curious subtleties, and specious insincerities. 
His kindly nature made him value the approbation of 
his people. To-day, when we cannot suffer a word to 
his discredit, we almost resent his own words, when we 
read, in a letter he once wrote to Mr Conkling, "But 
many people find fault with me." We feel ashamed 
that we ever doubted him, when we read further and 
hear him saying : "I certainly wish that all men should 
be free, while you, I suppose, do not." And then he 
proceeds to state, with that judicial clearness so charac- 
teristic of his mind, the emancipation policy. 

The same regard for fair-dealing which led him to 
offer, again and again, compensated emancipation to the 
slave-master, made him determined to protect the men 
whom he had freed. " To abandon them now," he says, 
" would not only be to relinquish a lever of power, but 
would also be a cruel and astounding breach of faith." 

He was a constant and self-sacrificing friend, and never 
allowed personal ambition to pervert justice. Early in 
the war, he showed a generous readiness to take upon 
himself the responsibility of unpopular acts. He laid 
aside the traditional dignities of his office, and mounted 
the rostrum, that he might defend the character and dis-^ 
position of influential servants of the government. It is 
the singular truth that in the death of him we mourn, 
his enemies are even more bereaved than his friends. 
His cool assassin was a lunatic suicide. 



334 SERMONS ON THE 

But why prolong the mention of virtues that do but 
prolong our grief? These memories only deepen our 
sense of a loss already, at times, beyond our trustful 
submission. 

Let me leave with you these words of sober prophecy 
and faithful advice. I need not tell you the name of 
their author : 

" Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope 
it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to 
be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have 
been proved, that, among freemen, there can be no suc- 
cessful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they 
who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and 
pay the cost. Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a 
speedy, final triumph. Let us be quite sober ; let us 
diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just 
God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful 
result." 



REV. A. L. STONE. 



LAMENTATIONS V: 15, 16 



The Joy of our heart is ceased ; our Dance is turned 
into Mourning. 
The Crown is fallen from our Head. 



When, three days ago, the morning of the day 
appointed for fasting, humiliation, and prayer, rose 
upon a people jubilant with the joy of victory, many 
felt that both the designation of the day and the ac- 
customed manner of its observance should be changed ; 
that, instead of fasting, there should be feasting, in- 
stead of humiliation and supplication, thanksgiving and 
praise. 

But some of us remembered, and we called it to mind, 
that the chief intent of the day, as our fathers kept it, 
was prospective. It did not look backward with peni- 
tential review, so much as it looked forward with fore- 
casting deprecation to possible evils. The day was 
appointed in the spring season, when the great venture 
of the harvest was at hazard, and all the uncertainties 
of elemental blight and blessing hung poised in the 
scales of Providence. If there were confession, for- 
saking of sin, — as was always tru^, — it was as a 
29 < 337) 



338 SERMONS ON THE 

preparation of heart for availing prayer, that " the 
early and the latter rain " might fall, each in its time ; 
the hand of the reaper bind and gather its sheaves 
with joy, and the autumn granaries be full. Then 
should follow the commemorative festival, looking to 
the past, and celebrating the throned goodness that had 
provided abundance for the wants of man and beast. 
It was this ideal of the day recently observed, that held 
so many Christian pulpits and Christian people so closely 
to its first design. 

We ought to have felt, more deeply than we did, that 
the future might bring up, into that bright morning sky, 
dark clouds big with storm and tempest, and have 
stretched our hands up with a mightier reach of suppli- 
cation toward the sovereign hand holding the balances 
weighted with coming events. 

The thought was on our hearts and on our lips that 
there might be perils brooding for our country, shadows 
gathering over the path of its future. But who could 
have looked forward to so dark a shadow as this which 
has fallen ! who could have painted this sable cloud on 
that smiling sky ! 

There was talk, with some, of reversing our associa- 
tions with this month of the Spring, and our religious 
observances wedded to its annual return, and making it 
henceforth our month of most tuneful rejoicing, — the 
coronal of the year. But not now ! We cannot change 
thee, oh, weeping April ! oh, month of tears ! Pour 
down all thy warm showers : from our eyes the rain falls 
faster yet ! Evermore, from henceforth, at thy return, 
thou and the sorrowing nation shall weep together. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 339 

How sudden the changes of the April sky, — sun- 
shine ! shower ! And beneath, on our faces and in our 
hearts, how faithfully copied ! What glad days they 
were that followed those two memorable sabbaths, 
freighted with such a gospel of victory and peace ! 
What a deep and tender joy rested upon all our homes 
and temples ! Richmond was taken. The sword of 
Lee was broken. Loyal and honest hands were on their 
way to run up the old flag above the battered and ruined 
walls of Sumter. Every eye was sunny with gratulant 
greetings to every other. How sudden the darkness ! 
Night comes in nature with twilight herald running 
before. Our night came without precursor, — " in a 
moment, in the twinkling of an eye," as though noon 
and midnight had met. 

There were beds the night before last, I suppose, rest- 
less with dreams ; but with all the sleepers there was no 
dream so black as that awful fact that went pulsing and 
tolling through the night, and lies now like an incubus 
which memory cannot chase away, upon the shuddering 
national heart. 

We have lost great and good men before. They have 
been taken from the high places of honor and of trust 
with their robes of office on. They have been taken 
from the scenes of retirement whither a nation's homage 
followed them, bearing in its offerings before their feet. 
Washington died leaving that one peerless title behind 
him, — "The Father of his Country." Harrison and 
Taylor died, sinking wearily down from that chair toward 
whose great vacancy our dim eyes look to-day. Our 
two great Massachusetts statesmen and orators passed 



340 SERMONS ON THE 

away leaving us to feel that the world was less rich and 
grand since they were gone. But these were all led 
gently from our presence, by a messenger hand, whose 
power and whose right none of us could question. The 
Divine Will, by itself, and alone, made up and executed 
the summons. 

But our dear President was snatched from us by the 
hand of violence. This was the bitter element in the 
cup. He might have lived. He was not sick. He was 
not old. •* His eye was not dim, nor his natural force 
abated." All wantonly and wickedly his precious blood 
was shed ; unchilled by age, untainted with disease. 
He had reached no natural bound of life. It was not a 
treasure expended, but stolen by forceful robbery. It ia 
not simply bereavement, — but bereavement by such 
awful fraud, that tries us most sorely. 

And yet none the less — but how it strains upon our 
submission — none the less is it the solemn, sovereign 
providence of the reigning God. Truly " clouds and 
darkness are round about him." In this visit to us " He 
maketh darkness his pavilion," and our hand cannot 
draw back the heavy folds. He is trying, by a hard test, 
our faith, our confidence, our resignation. Oh that our 
struggling lips could say clearly, if not calmly, "It is 
the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good." We 
must say that, before we can have any comfort, before 
our prayers can find acceptance, and before the divine 
hand will take from our suppliant hand the loose-lying 
reins of state. God help us to say out of the depths of 
this great grief, without a doubt, without any reserve, 
with our yearning affections still clinging around that 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 341 

pale, dead form, lying in the chamber of the White 
House, " Thy will be done ! " 

How dear he was to the people! That thought 
comes first after the loss. He was of them. He was 
not lifted above them, either in pride of place, or 
pride of intellect, or the kingly style of his greatness. 
He walked on our levels still. All his simple, plain, 
homely talk, kept him near us. He spoke our vernacu- 
lar, the language of the fireside and common life, 
and not the dialect of courts. He did not leave us, and 
wrap himself in official stateliness, when he went up 
the hill of the capitol. His kindly face and voice, his 
cheerful, humorous, fireside English, his form and atti- 
tudes, and all his personal habits, made him seem of 
kin to each of us. A familiar, friendly, neighborly air 
hung about him everywhere. He put on nothing. He 
was always his own, true, hearty, republican self. The 
people loved him. That thin, swarthy face, that tall, 
angular form, drew after them, more than all beauty and 
grandeur in the land, the blessings of their hearts. And 
he loved them. He was thoughtful for the comfort of 
the aged, the poor, the hearts which war had made deso- 
late. The humblest could go to him, finding an open 
door and an open heart. It seems to me that we have 
never held any other President so tenderly in our affec- 
tions. And one reason is, we have never found any 
other so accessible to our thoughts and sympathies, and 
never one so much of our own mould and substance. 

How we confided in him ! He was a man to build 
trust upon. His honesty was a pillared rock. The 
pleasant air, with which, against whatever importunity, 
29* 



342 SERMONS ON THE 

he kept his purposes, covered and mantled the sternest 
conscientiousness. The careless step with which he 
walked toward his objects in the country's welfare, 
neither wealth nor favor could make to swerve. All was 
simple, easy, and natural, but firm-fibred as oak, true 
as steel. The most faithful discharge of his great duty, — 
the highest good of the nation, — to this fixed, unrevolving 
star his soul was steady as the needle to the pole. He had 
a sharp insight that cut through all the rind of sophis- 
tries to the core of difficult questions, leaving such light 
on the stroke that other minds could follow. He was 
a man of parables, and translated the dark and vexed 
problems of political science into pleasant similitudes, 
transparent to the dullest eye. Where a diplomatic 
answer would have been dignified obscurity, he told a 
story through which flashed the honest light of clear 
intelligence. He was in this way a wonderful teacher 
of the nation. His brief, pithy, humorous narratives 
have made crooked things straight, through a thousand 
tortuous walks of State policy. This quaint, ever-ready 
humor was the soft cushion upon which the great burdens 
of his public cares impinged, covering and shielding his 
nerves from laceration. It saved him half the wear and 
tear of his official work. It kept his friends, and con- 
ciliated those who differed from him. He could convince 
with a smile, refute with a jest, turn the flank of heavy 
reasoning with this agile lightness of wit and conquer 
kind feeling, if not persuasion, — generally both. 

His goodness was his greatness. His honest heart 
helped his straight-forward mind. He saw truth and 
duty more clearly by this inward illumination His 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 34-3 

reach of genuine desire carried out his reach of intellect, 
and became genius. He was more sagacious than his 
advisers, partly because he was more single-hearted. He 
sought so earnestly the best means to the noblest end, that 
he was sure of an intellectual triumph in their discovery. 
He kept the moral sky clear, and it reflected light upon 
the mental. A pure patriot, who walked with honor, 
faith, and truth, though walking amid the defilements and 
corruptions of political life, and so kept his garments 
unstained. But this is no time, in the freshness of our 
affliction, for his eulogy. It is too soon to write that. 
We must wait till the clouds have risen from all the 
paths he trod, — till the smoke of conflict and the haze 
of prejudice are swept away by the sun-bright air of our 
newly-risen day. By and by the future will lead us up 
to calm heights that will give us perfect vision over all 
these fluctuating levels. We are too near Abraham 
Lincoln yet, fully to survey and respect his great nature 
and his great work. Not till the wave on whose crest 
he rode has receded with him a little, shall we be able to 
discover on the back-ground of these eventful times the 
true proportions of his greatness. Every coming day 
will add to his fame ; and coming generations will testify 
that no purer, no nobler, no more fruitful life has been 
given to our nation and American history. 

" We trusted it had been he," whom God had appointed 
to lead us through both the Red Sea and the desert 
beyond, to the Canaan of our future. But the dastard 
hand of treason struck, — struck as cowards always 
strike, from behind, — struck, with the confession of 
weakness and desperate inferiority which the assassin 



344 SERMONS ON THE 

and his cause always make in the very act that gluts 
their hate, and the good, the great, the gentle, the kind, 
the large-hearted, the beloved President is no more ! 
Whatever else may be dark about this mystery of crime, 
we cannot mistake the spirit that steeped itself in that 
sacred blood. It is the same spirit that has been deaf 
for generations to the groans and sighs of the bondman ; 
the same that struck with parricidal hand at the breast 
of the country's life ; the same that opened the murder- 
ous thunders of war in Charleston harbor, and has kept 
them resonant over the land through four wasteful, tragic 
years ; the same that sent hired incendiaries to fire the 
mansions in our Northern cities, where women and babes 
as well as men slept in unsuspecting security ; the same that 
laid in wait for the President elect, with murderous intent, 
when he first left his Western home for the Capitol ; the 
same that advertised for bids upon his head, through the 
consenting press of the South ; the same that administered 
keepers' discipline in Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, for 
a step or gesture amiss, with bullet and bayonet ; that 
made grim Famine jailer at Belle Isle and Andersonville, 
over tens of thousands, to whom death only brought 
release. This black, consummate crime is only the ripe 
fruit of that system of barbarism which has struck its 
roots so deep, and had such stalwart growth in this conti- 
nent. That barbarism has cheapened human life in hearts 
where it has had its hour ; made shedding of blood like 
the pouring out of water ; the cries of famishing men as 
whisperings of the idle wind ; the striking down of 
senatorial dignity in its own place of privilege and 
unsuspecting safty, a deed of chivalrous gallantry; and 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 345 

now the cold-blooded murder of one who has led in the 
great marches of liberty to a whole race, and is hailed 
as deliverer and saviour by four millions of souls whose 
fetters have fallen at his word, and has disappointed thus 
the scheme to build a kingdom of darkness and of iron 
upon the necks of those millions, an act of fruitless though 
sweet revenge. It has delivered many a blow before, 
that has wrung and pierced the individual heart ; but it 
has found here at last its opportunity, Nero-like, to 
gather in one the hearts and hopes of all loyal people, 
and pierce them through with a single thrust. Will any 
one say that I go too far in attributing this stroke of a 
single hand to the whole system which it so fitly repre- 
sents ? The evidence found in the papers of the 
assassin, the time at first arranged for the execution of 
the plot, the hesitation of an accomplice at that time, 
until word should come FROM Richmond, and the 
mysterious threats and prophecies of Richmond papers of 
that date, of some great shock to the Union, and the world 
even, then just impending, which would be the deliver- 
ance of the confederacy, all go to show that the secret of 
this conspiracy, and its dark purpose, were in the hearts of 
the rebel chiefs in the rebel capital. 

But what has it gained for itself by such triumphant 
guilt ? Any reversal of its own infamy ; a more clement 
judgment in history ; the blossoming of fresh hope for 
its own dark designs ; a change of sentiment and will 
with the loyal people ; the blotting out of the great 
victories of the fortnight past ; aught but a crimson hand 
whose stain strikes all through the soul, and the curse 
of earth and heaven ? It has bought its revenge dear. 



346 SERMONS ON THE 

And what, we may ask, is the extent of this revenge ? 
or, rather, in what aspects may we view it, that shall help 
us bear our loss, and show us the divine hand mingling 
in it? 

That deadly aim took the life of Abraham Lincoln. 
But it could not touch his past. That is forever safe. 
It could not blot out one of those pregnant years through 
which his hand was on the helm of the ship of state, as 
she drove reeling over the great waves of the storm. It 
could not make good the threat, that he should never live 
to take his seat in the Presidential chair. It could not 
bereave the country of one counsel of wisdom, one firm 
resolve upon which she has leaned so steadily in her 
darkest hours. It could not put out the light of that shin- 
ing example of truthfulness and dutifulness which has 
been to us all. in this night of gloom, a star of cheer and 
of guidance, it could not undo the policy which has 
gathered and marshalled invincible armies, and conquered 
peace by the sword, without one compromise of right- 
ful, unfettered authority. It could not silence that voice 
that spoke out on the most illustrious New Year's morn- 
ing of all our history, and said to Four Millions of 
slaves, " Be Free ! " — and the winds of heaven bore it 
out, "Be Free!" — and the sea repeated it, on all our 
shores, " Be Free !" — and the eagle of liberty, looking 
down on his own broad continent, screamed it, " Be 
Free!" — and the bending heavens with saluting angels 
sent it back to all our dusky homes, " Be Free !" — and 
the echo rose in unnumbered voices of lonely lips, toned 
with wondrous gratitude, " Free, Free, Free!" That 
word Las been spoken. In that word the murdered 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 347 

President " though dead still speaketh." That voice can 
never be silenced, though those pale lips shall never part 
again. The work that has been done, and so^well done, 
by this faithful worker, cannot be undone. No power 
beneath the sun can roll back this nation to where 
she stood four years ago. Those grand acts of the 
drama that have moved across the stage will never 
retrace their steps. This final act of victory and 
certainty cannot be exchanged for that first act of 
surprise, confusion and fear. Our risen morning 
cannot sink down behind the orient, and hide again 
in the darkness of the past. The night of doubt 
and defeat, the night of slavery, the night of defiant 
rebellion, those deep shadows of the past, have fled ; and 
the new day no man can sweep from the brightening fir- 
mament. All this has been gained, for us and humanity, 
under that leadership whose stricken hand has dropped 
the sceptre now. The sceptre has fallen, but this work 
remains. The past is secure. No murderer's hand has 
power to blot it. 

In our hearts, too, our slain leader still lives. He lives 
more vitally than ever. Many hearts that were cool to 
him will have opened now, and taken him in. All 
prejudice will forgive him and accept him. He is no 
more an object of criticism ; he is beyond the reach of 
hate. Hate itself will die out, and in its place will 
come a concession of his many virtues and peerless ex- 
cellences. He is dead. All pens that write of him 
will mite forbearingly, if not tenderly and admiringly. 
And those of us who loved and honored him before will 
take his name and image into some more interior cham- 



348 SERMONS ON THE 

ber of our hearts, within some more sacred shrine, and 
guard them there. It was not Abraham Lincoln, it was 
our cause, the cause of liberty, the cause of humanity, 
the cause of government, the cause of the Union, that 
was doomed to the death by that felon hand. The vic- 
tim stood on that perilous height, as the representative 
of this whole great scheme of human progress. He is 
its martyr. He died for that. He was slain because of 
his faithfulness to that scheme. Our hands led him up, 
once and again, to that eminence, and set him there as a 
target for the deadly malice of the conspirators. He 
fell because we laid upon him such trust, and because he 
discharged it all too well. We can but love him the 
more for this. Our noble, murdered witness, with his 
good confession, his home and his throne, are henceforth 
in our heart of hearts. The assassin's steel, the deadly 
aim, cannot reach him here. We will teach our posterity 
to honor him. Our children, and our children's children 
shall hear us speak his name as our fathers spoke to us 
the name of Washington, and shall grow up revering 
and guarding the hallowed memory of this second Father 
of his country ; whom History will write, also, the Father 
of a race. 

His future, too, is safe. There is no question now, in 
any mind, whether any eclipse can come upon his fame. 
Would he have guided the vessel as wisely, through the 
intricate channels of reconstruction, as over the tempes- 
tuous sea of civil strife ? Could he have gained such 
wide assent and cheerful support to his measures, in the 
new exigencies of ruling, as in those through which he 
has safely brought us ? Might not some, who have been 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 349 

his friends, have turned against him possibly, as the new- 
questions of the hour, and of coming hours, came into 
sharp debate ? Already there were fears that he would 
not prove stern enough for the stern work of retributive 
justice, and that his great, kind heart, rather than his 
bond to law, and to the destinies of the future, would 
have guided him in his treatment of the chiefs of the 
rebellion. But all fears, all questions, all doubts looking 
toward any qualification of his well-earned renown, are 
vanished now. He can show no weakness in the future, 
to reflect upon his strength in the past, commit no folly 
to reproach his old sagacity, make no blunder that shall 
leave him shorn of influence, and mingle large qualifica- 
tion with the praise of history. He is safe from all these 
possibilities of errors, frailties, and failures. History 
must take his portrait as he is, standing at the very 
highest eminence of a just and stainless life. Not one 
laurel which he has won, and which he wears, is ever, 
by any reversal of coming days, to be stolen from his 
wealth of power. 

He was permitted, too, to see the great triumph 
toward which his hopes looked and his counsels helped. 
Thank God for that. He knew the rebellion doomed, 
the war ended, and the nation saved. That one supreme 
moment when his feet trod the streets of the conquered 
rebel capital paid him for all. He did not die like the 
old prophets "without the sight." He gazed with 
mortal eyes upon the glorious consummation, for which, 
with such grandeur of constancy and diligence, through 
four years whose weight would have crushed a weaker 
man, and would have crushed him but that he leaned on 
30 



350 SERMONS ON THE 

Heaven, he had been toiling. If the assassin had 
struck before the rebel banner fell at Richmond, and the 
sword of Lee was yielded to the hand of Grant, if the 
sun of the President had gone down before the sun of 
our rescued nationality had fairly risen, that would have 
been a darker and more trying providence. But that 
sun was up. Those patriot eyes saw its morning radi- 
ance, and reflected it back. He might almost have 
said, like aged Simeon, perhaps he did so say in the 
silence of some secret and thankful prayer, " Lord, now 
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes 
have seen thy salvation ! " 

It will not be too bold to say, that his work was done 
when it paused ; for God, who gives each man his task, 
so judged and so appointed. His mission was accom- 
plished. That for which God raised him up he had 
performed. All that was committed to him to do he 
finished, and finished well. That which comes after is 
assigned to other heads. God is not limited in the 
number or in the variety of his agents. Nothing is 
put in peril now by this falling of a trusted leader 
which God cannot as well provide for, and make even 
more victoriously secure. 

Least of all are we to fear, that the great cause of 
progress in this land must needs be turned back, or even 
halt. That cause may be served and forwarded by men; 
but it is not dependent upon their living or dying. It is 
not invested in any vulnerable, human life. It is not 
something material which bludgeon or steel may strike 
to the earth. Its citadel is not within frail human flesh, 
or within the truest and noblest human heart. It is a 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 351 

kingdom of truth, — a life of ideas, invisible, invul- 
nerable, — on all the air, — in the faith and testimony 
of millions of confessors, — in God's imperishable word, 
— linked with his invincible providence, — in living 
seed of thoughts and principles which righteous blood 
shed by the hand of violence only quickens to a more 
instant germination, and ripens to an earlier and broader 
harvest. That cause is God's cause. It is hid in his 
heart. It is carried on his eternal purpose. It is too 
high and safe for human desperation to strike. 

Let none of us in his great grief despair or despond 
over his country. Recall to-day that word which has 
become in these stern times our national motto, " In 
God we trust ! " He did not lead Israel through the 
Red Sea to forsake them in the wilderness. He will 
not forsake us on the shore from which we have looked 
down on our foes overwhelmed and broken. He has led 
us hitherto. He can lead us on. His counsels have not 
changed. His power is not baffled. He can appoint us 
a leader. Moses was not permitted to go over Jordan ; 
but there arose a new captain of the Lord's host, and 
the sword of Joshua instead of the rod of Moses waved 
in the van of advance. David was not permitted to 
build a temple for the Lord his God, because he had 
been a man of war, and had shed much blood ; but he 
prepared the way, accumulated the means, conquered 
the peace, and Solomon reared the magnificent, sacred 
pile. Through our tears let us look up and confide in 
that Supreme Leader. 

He has mingled mercy even with this great tragedy. 
Part of the bloody conspiracy was foiled. The Secretary 



352 SERMONS ON THE 

of State, and those smitten in his defence, we may hope 
will survive. The arm that conquered in the field, 
doomed in the foul plot with those who were stricken, — 
the arm of our hero, Grant, is nerved still with life and 
strength. God keep it so nerved. God shield the head 
of Grant. How wide the murderous scheme, and how 
many names were written on the assassins' roll, none of 
us can tell, but every great and precious life we can 
commend to his vigilant keeping who has numbered 
the hairs of our head, and without whom not a sparrow 
falls to the ground. 

What if the new unexpected responsibility settling 
upon the legal successor of the slain President should 
fill him with another heart, call hirn up to the height of a 
great consecration, gird him with noble and faithful 
purposes, so that the memory of one hour of shame 
shall be remembered no more against him, in the splendor 
of a long and just renown? That issue is more than 
possible. This, too, may be given as the answer of 
Christian intercession. 

And oh, we have that stricken household to bathe with 
a nation's sympathy; to beseech God's tenderest con- 
solations for them; to lift them, and lay them for 
strength and comfort on the heart of Jesus. 

Of what infinite worth to them now, and to us also, 
those words of tender confession which came a few 
months ago from the President's lips: "Yes, now I can 
say that I do from my heart love the Lord Jesus Christ." 

We feel, many of us, that we could have wished, for 
him whom we mourn, a different scene for the last hour 
of his health and consciousness on earth, that he could 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 353 

have met the fatal missive on some stage of official duty, 
or in the retirement of home, or in the circle of religious 
worship, rather than within those festal walls. Yes, it 
would have been better. 

But they were scarcely festal walls to him. They 
were a sort of refuge often, for one who had no retire- 
ment of home, from the incessant calls and wearying 
importunities of aspirants for place and office. 

And it has seemed to be rather one of the penalties 
than pleasures of political rank and illustrious position, 
that they must yield themselves to the popular welcomes 
and fellowship in such festive gatherings. And the plea 
that prevailed with the President to visit the theatre on 
this particular night was that of his own kind heart, 
unwilling, in the necessary absence of their idolized 
general, that the waiting enthusiasm of the people should 
be altogether denied an object for its expression; his 
last thought not for himself, but for the gratification of 
those whom he loved and served. 

And so he has passed from the midst of us. Our joy- 
bells have changed their merry peals for solemn tolling. 
Our festive banners droop at half-mast. Our purposed 
jubilant processions must become funeral marches to 
this new grave. " The joy of our hearts is ceased. 
Our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is 
fallen from our head." 

We touch, in this event, one of the great pivotal 
points in our history and destiny, on which turn issues 
more momentous than we can now discern. But our 
future is with God, and not at the mercy of human 
scheming and human crime. 
30* 



354 SERMONS ON THE 

We shall not have much time for tears even over so 
great a sorrow. Our work is stern and pressing. One 
thing is beyond contradiction Yielding rebellion has 
lost its most lenient judge, — returning rebels their best 
friend. His successor has always entertained towards 
these parricides a sharper and more incisive purpose. 
They will meet in him a face set like a flint, a hand of 
iron. They have not gained much by the exchange. 

We shall none of us be any the more inclined to spare 
the last remaining weakness of the old system, from this 
new exhibition of its fell spirit, or to apologize for that 
temper in the midst of us that can make this day of 
broken-hearted mourning a day of glad tidings to itself. 
It is not wise just now for such minds to speak out their 
brutal gladness. Our hearts are too sore to bear it. 
They had better hide it, if they feel it, so deep that 
neither by look nor lip shall it get expression. We 
shall not be very patient with it. The law officers have 
found out that there is such a crime as being accessories 
to murder after the fact, and the spirit of Andrew John- 
son is the downright kindred spirit of the Andrew Jack- 
son of other days, and treason, North and South, will have 
a short shrift and a sharp doom. Perhaps we needed, 
all of us, to see more clearly the wickedness against 
which we have had to contend, and to be girded anew 
for its utter extermination. Let us crush it quickly, and 
forever. 

And so, bereft of this one helper in whom we have 
felt strong, let us turn to God with a new spirit of 
dependence on his Almighty arm. and make our tears of 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 355 

mourning the waters of a new baptismal consecration to 
the service of our country and humanity, the supremacy 
of law, and the safety, honor, and perpetuity of this 
Union, for which we have paid so great a price. 



REV. J. D. FULTON. 



DEUTERONOMY XXXIV: 7. 



"His eye was not dim, nor his natural Force abated." 



An inscrutable providence crowds this and other 
sanctuaries to-day. A nation, redeemed by the blood 
and toil of her bravest and best, mourns the loss of a 
Chief Magistrate, who was the embodiment of a people's 
hope, and the object round which the affections gathered 
of every lover of liberty in the world. Abraham Lincoln 
was sincerely loved. That "peasant proprietor," and 
"village lawyer," whom, by some divine inspiration or 
providence, the republican party of 1860 selected to be 
their standard bearer ; whose election was regarded as 
a calamity by many of his supporters ; and as a justifiable 
cause for the most monstrous rebellion upon which the 
sun ever shone, grew to be the peer of Washington, and 
climbed to the highest peak of earthly distinction. 

It was a great shock when half the nation attempted 
to make the dream of secession a real fact, and when 
the guns of Sumter sounded the call to arms ; but it was 
trivial when contrasted with the emotions experienced 
as the tidings reached us that Abraham Lincoln had 

(359) 



3 GO SERMONS ON THE 

been assassinated. We were glad when the armies of 
the rebellion were beaten ; when Richmond fell ; when 
Lee capitulated ; but we would rather have had 
Washington environed with the enemy and have 
had Lincoln alive, than to have had the armies defeated 
and Lincoln dead. This is a new crime. We are not used 
to the bloody hand in that shape. We have felt that 
" slavery was the sum of all villanies," and that men 
who could starve our brothers amidst abundance ; who 
could suffer them to freeze, and go unsheltered amid 
primeval forests, were capable of any act of cruelty and 
injustice ; but we had forgotten that sin is blinding, 
and that God often permits the wrath of man to work 
out his own destruction ; and so we had somehow 
fancied that rebels had hearts and brains as other 
men ; and that they would discover, what we have 
felt all the way, that our chief magistrate was a wall 
between the wrath of an outraged people and the veriest 
criminals of history. 

They did not perceive the truth, and so they conspired 
against the life of their best, if not of their only powerful 
friend. There is no other like him. Death has frozen 
and hardened that loving face, and embalms it in the 
memories of mankind as a legacy of the past. That 
heart which felt its need of divine support when the 
nation's sky was o'er clouded, and the air was full of 
rumors and revolt ; which nearly broke as the eye gazed 
upon the lifeless form of his idolized child; and which 
surrendered itself to Jesus as the boom of the cannon at 
Gettysburg assured us that the nation was in its Geth- 
semane struggle ; which wrought, by the throes of an 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 361 

indescribable anguish, Emancipation for this nation ; 
which was so full of gentleness and love, and so longed 
for peace, that already it was nearing the verge of 
injustice, in its search for its ways of being merciful, is 
stilled in death. 

" Yet a few days and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more. 
Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, 
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, 
All in one mighty sepulchre." 

Like Moses, he has died, not because of disease, nor of 
advanced age ; his eye was not dim, nor was his natural 
force abated. He died because his work was done. He 
had passed through battle, sorrow, and war ; had climbed 
the heights of Pisgah, and had gained a view of the 
Canaan of peace lying in the distance ; and when the 
Lord had showed him all the land, and had assured him 
of the promise that the sons of freedom should possess 
it, by his providence he declared, " Thou shalt not go 
over thither." 

The purpose which God had to accomplish through 
his instrumentality had beeen fulfilled ; and, as there are 
dividing lines in time, drawn by God, over which men 
never pass, it becomes us to bow in meek submission, 
here as elsewhere, and to hear the words, " Be still, 
and know that I am God." 

Four years ago we remembered him a£ he abode in 
hope. Then he found himself the object of Southern 
abuse so fierce and so foul, that, in any man less passion- 
less, it would long ago have stirred up an implacable 
31 



362 SERMONS ON THE 

hostility. Mocked at for his official awkwardness, and 
denounced for his steadfast policy ; beset by fanatics of 
principle on one side, who disregarded constitutional 
obligations, and by fanatics of caste on the other, who 
were not only deaf to the claims of justice, but would 
hear of no policy large enough for a revolutionary emer- 
gency ; now tried by a long series of disasters which 
distressed and depressed the nation, and now by a 
series of successes that would have puffed up a smaller 
mind, he has preserved his balance, and walked on in 
the path of duty ; never in advance of public opinion, 
and never far behind it ; going more as a passenger 
on the ship of state, believing that the hand of God was 
on the helm, than as a pilot and commander, capable of 
mapping out new and untried paths ; never trying to 
control events, but frankly confessing " that events have 
controlled me ; " never attempting to compliment his 
own sagacity, but gladly admitting that to God be- 
longs all the praise : like our Capitol, which has 
been pushed on towards completion amidst troublous 
times, though it lacks here a cornice and there a 
column, yet the statue of Liberty crowns its summit, 
and looks with glorious pride toward the east ; so 
we remember that though his character was incomplete, 
yet like the Capitol, its main portions stood out 
in grand and type-like outline, crowned with the laurel 
wreath of victory, and bearing on its ample frontlet, 
the emblazoned word of Liberty. We remember that 
a little more than a month befure he died, he stood 
forth on the day of his second inauguration, with a mes- 
sage so statesman-like, so imbued with Christian hope 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 363 

and charity, that even English critics declare that they 
can detect no longer the rude and illiterate mould of the 
village lawyer's thought, but find it replaced by a grasp 
of principle, and dignity of manner, and a solemnity of 
purpose, which would have been unworthy of none of 
the remarkable statesmen of the past : while his gentle- 
ness and generosity deserve to remain forever the wonder 
and admiration of mankind. 

Death has done its work ! That soul no longer lights 
up that tall, frail body. The window is darkened. The 
vital force is withdrawn. The heart ceases its beating. 
The tabernacle is emptied of its inhabitant and goes to 
decay. Rejoice that, though the assassin's bullet has 
wrought this, it could not accomplish its fell purpose. 
For though the earthly house of this tabernacle was 
destroyed, he had a building of God, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. He obeyed his 
Master's injunction and literally knew no fear of men, 
who could destroy the body, but after that have no more 
that they can do; but having feared Him who can cast 
both soul and body into hell, he had learned to put away 
trouble ; having believed in God, and having believed, 
also, in Christ. It is ours to rejoice. We had elected 
him to the highest of earthly positions, and made him an 
inhabitant of that house which is the goal of millions. 
Christ has lifted him higher, and made him a tenant 
of a mansion prepared for him in the heavens. Hence 
the loved wife, and those children, one of whom was 
just standing upon the verge of manhood, and the 
other " Tad." whom he loved so well, — a boy of hope 
and promise, — can exclaim, now that the soul has 



3G4: SERMONS ON THE 

winged its way upward, " Our loved one is with God." 
With the Christian the separation of the soul from the 
body is but the throwing aside the curtains of time, and 
crossing the threshold of a blissful eternity. His 
eternal Sabbath has begun. Sin, which fettered his 
soul here, cannot touch him there. He has escaped, 
like the eagle to the mountains ; the snare of the 
fowler is broken. He has kept Christ's command- 
ments, and abides in Christ's love. He has fought the 
good fight, and finished the course, and kept the faith ; 
and henceforth there remains for him a crown of right- 
eousness. Let us rejoice that over his remains the light 
of a Christian's hope sheds its radiance. In spiritual 
death there is something frightful to contemplate. We 
all understand the meaning of the word "death" as 
applied to the body ; none of us can comprehend the 
meaning of the term "death" as applied to the soul. 
We have seen the footprints of the destroyer, now in 
the wasted form, and sunken cheek and eye of those we 
have loved. We have seen the child of tender years 
lying, like a withered flower, in the lap of maternal 
tenderness ; we have gazed upon the robust frame, 
plump cheek, and closed eye, over which the sporting 
ringlet played, and have cried, " He is not dead, but 
sleepeth ; " we have seen death in horrid shapes on the 
battle-field, where giant men have fallen in the strife ; 
we have walked beneath the shadows of the pestilence, 
and have seen manly forms pierced by the arrows which 
God's messenger has drawn from his quiver, and shot 
with unerring aim from his death-dealing bow ; in fancy 
we have seen that bent head, that blood-crimsoned chair, 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 365 

that room crowded with senators and statesmen, and, ever 
and anon, vocal with the cries of a wife, who exclaims : 
"Live!" " You must live" *< Bring Tad — lie will 
speak to Tad — lie loves him so!" and yet there are 
scenes worse than this, — scenes which cannot be 
compared with those witnessed daily by the eye of 
faith ; seen by us as through a glass darkly, but seen 
by Spirit eyes in all their hideous proportions, whenever 
they gaze upon a world lying under bondage of death. 
The sight beheld in the White House is full of touching 
sadness, but the sight beheld by angel eyes within these 
walls is still more gloomy. The dead in trespasses and 
sins, without God, and without hope in the world, — 
what sight can be more pitiable than this ? " For the 
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungod- 
liness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth 
in unrighteousness." 

It was this which brought Christ to earth. He came 
to bridge the bridgeless river, and to lead captivity cap- 
tive. He was and is the way, the truth, and the life. 
His hand lifts heaven's window, and permits the eye to 
behold the streets paved with gold, and trodden by the 
feet of the redeemed. His revelation carries the torch 
through the vail, and permits us to see the fountain 
from whence the crystal stream flows forth, beside 
which the trees of life forever stand, and beneath 
which flowers bloom that delight the eye, and 
fruits abound which satisfy the soul. You feel 
that you have heard of that land as from a friend. 
In that land there are no gray hairs, no wrinkled 
cheeks, eyes do not grow dim with tears, forms are not 
31* 



366 SERMONS ON THE 

bent with age. The step is always light, and the ru My 
glow of health is ever on the cheek. In that land there 
are no creeping shadows, no wintry blasts, chilling the 
blood, and driving men to seek shelter. It is a place of 
rest, and a place of safety. Assassins cannot lurk there. 
The vile cannot dwell there. " And there shall in no 
wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatso- 
ever worketh abomination or maketh a lie ; but they 
which are written in the Lamb's book of life." 

Spiritual life and spiritual death are determined here. 
As the tree falls so it lies. This hope animates our souls 
to day. When a man's feelings are benumbed ; when 
his inclinations tend downwards ; when his affections are 
bound around the decaying things of time, and you 
find it impossible to lift them up, and cause them to 
twine about the living realities of eternity, and he dies, 
you feel that the beyond is full of gloom. But when he 
is good, reverent, loving ; when mellowness and great- 
heartedness, when faith in God, in Christ, and in the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit characterized him; when 
love for God begets a love for man, and the tie that binds 
him to the infinite links him to the finite ; when kind- 
ness broods over the actions ; when the blessings of those 
that were ready to perish rest upon him, and the peace 
that passeth knowledge flows like a river through the 
area of his life, it is impossible not to think that death 
is but the introduction to a more blessed companionship 
with Jesus : 



" Where rivers of pleasure flow bright o'er the plains, 
And the noontide of glory eternally reigns." 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 367 

You feel that, in the description of this good and rever- 
ent soul, I have described the character of Abraham Lin* 
coin. Never have we seen a nature more broad, a love 
of justice more strong, an incorruptibility of character 
more manifest, a loyalty to principle more binding, 
than distinguished the man whom we so profoundly 
mourn. As a denomination, we are indebted to him ; 
for it was his innate sense of justice, and love of right, 
that gave protection to some who are dear to our broth- 
erhood and to our hearts. Prison-doors have been 
unlocked by his hand. Soldiers condemned to be shot, 
rescued by him, have leaped into the embrace of heroic 
death with his name upon their lips. The fatherless, the 
stranger, the poor, and the desolate, rise up from this 
stricken land, and praise God for the benefaction and 
the benefactor. 

We remember, with sorrow, the place of his death. 
He did not die on Mount Nebo, with his eye full of 
heaven. He was shot in a theatre. We are sorry for 
that. It was a poor place to die in. It would not be 
selected by any of you as the spot from which you would 
desire to proceed to the bar of God. If ever any man 
had an excuse to attend a theatre, he had. The cares 
of office were heavy upon him. His brain reeled. His 
frame grew weak. He longed for a change. He 
desired to get away from the crowd, from the cares 
and responsibilities of office. Washington's closet would 
have been preferable. In conversing with a friend, he 
said, " Some think I do wrong to go to the opera 
and the theatre ; but it rests me. I love to be alone, 
and yet to be with the people. I want to get this 



368 SERMONS ON THE 

burden off; to change the current of my thoughts. 
A hearty laugh relieves me ; and I seem better able 
after it to bear my cross." This was his excuse. 
"Upon it we will not pronounce a judgment. This 
we will say : we are all sorry our best loved died 
there. But take the truth with its shadow. Moses was 
forbidden to enter the promised land because, at the 
waters of Meribah, he disbelieved God, was impatient, 
and took to himself the glory that belonged to God. 
Does not the rock in the desert stand as a finger 
pointing forward to our danger ? does not Moses' life 
assure us that none of us can hope for heaven through 
or because of any merits of our own ? 

We have not tried to disguise his fault, if you choose 
to give it that name. Is it not strange that there is no 
other which suggests itself? But I know of none. 
Admit this, and answer me. If you were to send a man 
to heaven, to represent the American people there, 
would you not cast your vote for him ? Who was his 
match in virtues ? Who has used opportunities so well, 
and so wisely ? 

Some tell us that he would not have done for the 
hour. God knows best ; and God took him : but do 
you believe that was the reason ? Has he not always 
met the emergency, and did not his last act show us 
that he was ready to meet this ? If he erred in 
leniency, did not he prove himself ready to be just, in 
condemning men who evidenced that they were ready 
to trifle with the imperilled interests of the country ? 

Is it not more just to say, God looked in pity upon 
a nation that had floated off the crime of slavery upon 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 369 

the outflowing currents of its own crimson life ; and that, 
in one blow, God intended to prepare us to understand 
his purposes, and make us ready for his judgments ? 
As another has said, " The cowardly crack of that pistol 
was the fitting knell of the infamous romance which ever 
belongs to feudal fierceness, and we shall probably hear 
no more of it. On Good Friday, long ago, the God ot 
Martyrs was sequestrated from all apparent hope ; but 
on the tomb of the Sacrificed arose the banner of free- 
dom everywhere and forevermore. Coming ages will 
hold our beloved President in perpetually augmenting 
esteem, until the vestiges of his beneficent rule are 
found, not along the strand of an inland sea, but upon 
the highest range of central mountains, equidistant 
between world-washing oceans, with the old flag above 
and the youngest race beneath, free under every tint, 
and fearing only God ! 

In the future it shall be discoverable, as it is not at 
this time, that his work was finished. Our country 
resembled a magnificent war-steamer, lodged midway in 
the Mississippi, but destined to sail the ocean. When 
Abraham Lincoln stepped upon her deck, four years ago, 
he found her prow in the muddy bank, her wheels were 
clogged with flood-wood, and her stern was swept by 
the resistless current. When he began his work he did 
not do any remarkable thing. He loosened first one 
■wheel and then the other. He turned on the steam, got 
her prow into the current, and began to sail down the 
mighty river. It was a perilous passage. Now she 
was swept along by rapids, now she moved amid frown- 
ing shores, alive with guerillas, and bristling with bat- 



370 SERMONS ON THE 

teries. Now she was stopped by sand-bars, and now 
driven through perilous channels, and the nation's hope 
died out, at times, as night settled down upon the ship 
and its brave commander. At last the gray dawn 
appeared, and the morning broke. The ship was moving, 
and he was on the prow, and the brave old crew stood 
by his side. At last Vicksburg fell ; the ship moved 
on. You remember his words : '• The signs look better. 
The Father of Vr'aters again goes unvexed to the sea. 
Thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly 
to them. Three hundred miles up they met New Eng- 
land, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way, 
right and left. Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be 
forgotten. At all the water's margins they have been 
present, not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the 
rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and 
wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been, 
and made their tracks. Thanks to all for the great 
republic, for the principles by which it lives and keeps 
alive for man's future ; thanks to all. Peace does not 
appear so far distant as it did. I hope it will come 
soon, and come to stay ; and so come as to be worth 
the keeping for all future time." Sustained by this 
hope, how he worked, how he waited ! Peace was 
coming ; the current of a national purpose grew stronger 
and stronger ; our ship passed straight into the Gulf, 
and our commander got a little taste of the salt sea, 
and a slight touch of the billow when he confronted 
the long swell of the Atlantic. At this point a strange 
Providence startles us. The assassin's bullet causes him 
to step aside, just as the nation begins to think of 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 371 

closing up the rebellion ; and so, in a moment, as if 
summoned by God to new and fresh work, she lays 
aside her glove of kid, and puts on her glove of iron, — 
gets ready to answer the difficult questions and solve the 
knotted problems, and settle her running account with 
the traitors at home, and with the sympathizers with 
traitors abroad. A man falls, but a nation lives. A 
fact which would have thrown France into a revolution 
but steadies the American character, and solidifies our 
government. Yesterday, we considered the effects of 
this death upon the settlement of national questions 
and the jurisprudence of the land. To-day, let us con- 
fine our attention to the delineation of his character, 
and follow him as he enters upon his reward on high. 

Consider now here God's goodness to our Chief 
Magistrate. Come with me to the eternal city, ye 
that know what it is to see a look of love come to you 
from the hungry whom ye have fed, and the naked 
whom ye have clothed, and behold Abraham Lincoln 
walking humbly the golden streets bearing in his arms 
the manacles of four million redeemed bondmen, and of 
thirty million emancipated freemen, and saying in his 
quaint way, Dear Master, these are the results of the 
washing of thy blood, arid of the proclamation of thy 
glorious gospel. Behold the husbands and sons whose 
spirits have preceded him from battle-fields and prisons, 
from the slave-pen and from the dungeon, and hear 
them in their ascriptions of praise to Him to whom 
belongeth the glory forevermore. 

It is hard to part with him, but it is cruelty to wish 
him back. His life was round, full, and complete. Can 



372 SERMONS ON THE 

you not see Jesus opening the record of him whose 
footprints of love are found in every path where it was 
possible for him to be useful ? Can you not see his face 
light up as Jesus leads him into the mansions hung with 
the pictures of his faithful acts ? There is one where 
he saved the widow's son, whose father had been his 
benefactor in his youth. There is another descriptive 
of his thoughtful tenderness to his aged stepmother, who 
has been supported by his munificent care. Another 
reveals him writing sometimes five hundred notes per 
day for the poor and the destitute in Washington, 
asking a job for this laborer, a pass for this wife, 
granting a pardon for this innocent, and bending his 
tired frame over documents in which he can have no 
personal interest, in his search for justice. There are a 
few acts which will immortalize him in history. The 
Emancipation Proclamation is the crowning act. This 
secures him immortality. This lifts him to a niche in 
the temple of fame an arrow's shot higher than any 
ever held by any living American. But in heaven, 
methinks, I see Christ's eye reading records our eyes 
never will see, and hear him saying, " Inasmuch as ye 
did it unto these, ye did it unto me." The form of his 
beneficent face will be perpetuated in marble, and cities 
will vie with each other in piling up monuments, to 
attest their appreciation of his worth. 

A Christian's monument is not built of any material 
as decaying in its nature as marble. It cannot be con- 
fined to any given locality. Would you see the monu- 
ment of Moses you need not make a pilgrimage to 
Mount Nebo, or search with your eye the plains of 



DEATH OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN". 373 

Moab for a mosque or a marble shaft. His monument is 
not there ; still, he has one visible to every eye. Look 
over the records of the past and see how that name has 
ploughed its way into the history of the world. The 
monument of Abraham Lincoln rests in the heart-love of 
the American people. It is composed of acts which will 
glow with immortal beauty; with acts, rising higher 
than any mere monument of stone, round which loving 
recollections will eternally entwine themselves, and in 
which the hopes of millions are enshrined. Such char- 
acters are creations of God. They exist. They had a 
beginning, but their growth was almost unnoticed. All 
we know about them is, they were ready to bear any 
burden, to endure any hardship. Press them with cares 
you but hold them steady, as the beams strung along on 
the top of columns keep them from failing. There is 
nothing superfluous about them. Equal to every emer- 
gency, ready for every task, faithful in every crisis, they 
naturally become objects of almost idolatrous trust, and 
of malignant hate. Their lives are full of toil and hard- 
ship. As a workman often uses his best instrument to 
overcome the greatest difficulty, and to surmount the 
most perplexing obstacle, as the strongest men are sent 
to perform the hardest tasks, so God gives his chosen 
ones heavy burdens, and sends them forward on perilous 
enterprises, knowing that they have the nerve to attempt, 
the courage to endure, and the faith requisite to the 
accomplishment of the gigantic undertaking. 

Abraham Lincoln's traits of character are easily 
described. His power of trust was marvellous. He 
believed in the structural power of our free institutions, 
32 



374 SEBMONS ON THE 

which, without any statesman's cooperation, is slowly 
building a free nation on this great continent. He felt 
that the dogmas of the great past were inadequate to the 
glorious present. "The occasion," said he, ''is piled 
high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. 
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our 
country." He believed in the logic of events, because 
in them he thought he saw the purposes of God. 

He believed in the people, and longed to hear from 
them. He asked for discussion as for light, and awaited 
opportunity. At the outset he pledged himself simply 
" to hold, occupy, and possess the property of the United 
States ; " and when he accomplished the task, he passed 
away. He was a conscientious and deeply honest man. 
He was afraid of gratifying self at the expense of duty, 
and of sacrificing duty for the sake of self. This ex- 
plains many mysteries. The hand that wrote, " If I 
could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would 
do it," wrote, also, " I am, naturally, anti-slavery. If 
slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot re- 
member when I did not so think and feel. And yet 
I have never understood that the Presidency conferred 
upon me an unrestricted right* to act, officially, upon 
this judgment and feeling." 

His integrity was thorough, all pervading and all con- 
trolling. He hesitated to put down his foot. There is 
little doubt but thousands of lives were sacrificed because 
of his slowness ; but when he put down his foot it was 
as immovable as the rock itself, and his waiting may 
have saved the nation. We all remember his message 
in which he disclosed his purpose of giving freedom to 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 375 

the slave. It assumed the form of a duty. " In giving 
freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, hon- 
orable alike in what we give and what we preserve. 
We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope 
of earth. Other means may succeed : this could not 
fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just ; a way 
which, if followed, the world will forever approve, and 
God must forever bless." 

The people confided in him, not so much because they 
believed in his genius, or in the quickness of his percep- 
tions, as because of a sense of safety and security, 
which was begotten by the methods chosen to reach 
important conclusions. 

He believed in God and recognized the value of 
prayer. Hence, when he left Springfield for Washing- 
ton, fifty-three months before, he said to his old and 
tried friends, " I leave you with this request : pray for 
me." They did pray for him. Millions beside them 
prayed for him. To a company of clergymen he said, 
•' Gentlemen, my hope of success in this great and terri- 
ble struggle rests on that immutable foundation, the 
justice and goodness of God. And when events are 
very threatening, and prospects are very dark, I still 
hope that in some way which man cannot see, all will 
be well in the end, because our cause is just, and God is 
on our side." 

He was one of the people. Well do some of us 
remember standing upon the steps of the White House, 
as he came forth from the Presidential mansion. He 
bowed to us in passing. Our hearts were touched by 
his careworn, anxious face. Passing into the grounds, 



376 SERMONS ON THE 

on his way to the War Office, he stopped to give a 
greeting to a couple of pet goats that waited for his 
recognition. While thus engaged, one of the party- 
stepped up and said, "Mr. Lincoln, will you allow 
me to introduce to you two Massachusetts women." 
He drew himself up to his full height, swept his hand 
over his face, and said, "Yes, bring them along." We 
came, and were introduced. He chatted pleasantly until 
we grew frightened, and begged him not to allow us to 
intrude upon his time. We felt, it was said, that it 
would be a great pleasure to shake hands with our 
honored Chief Magistrate, here, beneath God's open 
heaven, and on this green grass. " Ah ! " said he, 
waiting a moment, " such a privilege is worth contend- 
ing for," and then, assuring us of his pleasure to greet 
the people, he passed on to his laborious tasks. Well 
has it been said, "No one who approached him, whether 
as minister or messenger, felt impelled either to stoop or 
strut in his presence." Edward Everett, after observing 
his bearing, at Gettysburg, among the Cabinet and 
foreign ministers, the Governor, and other notables, 
pronounced him the peer, in deportment, of any one 
present. 

He was an affectionate man. He never forgot a favor 
or a friend. The men he loved before he was President, 
he loved even more tenderly after he learned the value 
of their disinterested affection. 

He was a temperance man, and never used intoxicating 
liquors, or tobacco. After his return from Richmond, 
we are told, a cask of old whiskey, taken from the cel- 
lar of one of the southern grandees, was brought to the 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 377 

War Office, and opened. He was urged to take it in 
honor of the occasion. He declined, and thus refused 
to lend the influence of his name and position to the 
support of a practice which has wrought such immense 
mischief in the Army and in the State. 

In the poem which he was so fond of repeating, and 
which he learned when a young man, you discover a key 
which unlocks many of the mysteries of that marvellous 
life. There is a charm in them which will repay perusal 
not only because of their intrinsic beauty, but because 
when we read them we seem to get near his great and 
loving: heart : — 



Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scattered around, and together be laid, 
And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall he. 

The infant a mother attended and loved ; 
The mother that infant's affection who proved ; 
The husband that mother and infant who blessed ; 
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of Rest. 

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne ; 
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn ; 
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, 
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 



32- 



78 SERMONS ON THE 

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap ; 
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep ; 
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread ; 
Have faded away, like the grass that we tread. 

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed 
That withers away, to let others succeed ; 
So the multitude comes, even those we behold, 
To repeat every tale that has often been told. 

For we are the same our fathers have been ; 
We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; 
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, 
And run the same course our fathers have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think ; 
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink 
To the life we are clinging they also would cling : 
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing. 

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold ; 
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold ; 
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come ; 
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 

They died, ay ! they died ; we, things that are now, 
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, 
And make in their dwellings a transient abode, 
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. 

Yea ! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
We mingle together in sunshine and rain ; 
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, 
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 379 

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death ; 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, — 
Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 

A man that revolved such thoughts in his mind was not 
likely to be elated by his position or place. There 
is one more fact which deserves to be mentioned, 
because it places the last stone upon the monumental 
pile of his greatness. He took time daily to peruse his 
Bible, and was often found up at four o'clock in the early 
morning holding communion with the Father of Lights 
in his word. Such is the character which America at 
this time places in her gilded bark of hope, and sends 
down the current of time to the distant future. Who- 
ever in Europe or Asia or Africa shall behold its heaven - 
enkindling look, will find the face of him whose 

"Patient toil 
Had robed our cause in victory's light, — 

" A martyr to the cause of man, 
His blood is freedom's eucharist, 
And in the World's great hero-list 
His name shall lead the van. 

" Yea ! raised on faith's white wings, unfurled 
In heaven's pure light, of him we say : 
He fell upon the self- same clay 
A Greater died to save the world." 



A PROCLAMATION. 

Whereas, it appears from evidence in the Bureau of 
Military Justice, that the atrocious murder of the late 
President, Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assas- 
sination of the Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of 
State, were incited, concerted, and procured by and 
between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and 
Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker 
George N, Sanders, W. C. Cleary, and other rebels and 
traitors against the Government of the United States, 
harbored in Canada ; 

Now, therefore, to the end that justice may be done, 
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do 
offer and promise for the arrest of said persons, or either 
of them, within the limits of the United States, so that 
they can be brought to trial, the following rewards : 

One Hundred Thousand Dollars for the arrest of 
.' reon Davis. 

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest ot 

Clement C. < m e 

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest ot 

.1 ob Thompson, late of Mississippi. 

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest ot 

(, irge X. Sanders. 

Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for the arrest of 
Beverly Tucker, and 

Ten" Thousand Dollars for the arrest of William C. 
CD try, late Clerk of Clement C. Clay. 

The Provost Marshal General of the United States is 
directed to cause a description of the said persons, with 
the notice of the above rewards, to be published. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand 

and caused the" seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, on this 2d day of May, 

in the year of our Lord one thousand 

eight hundred and sixty-rive, and of the 

[l. s.] Independence of the United States of 

America the eighty-ninth. 

ANDREW JOHNSON. 
By the President. 

Wm. Hunter, Acting Secretary of State. 



rixTON & co.a publications. 



BJELIGIOrS BOOKS, BOOKS OF 
CONSOLATION, &c. 




LIFE'G MORNING : 



•■ Quiet 



Thought 



I ,FE- 
L- art 



S EVENING ; or, 1 1 LOKD. By thi 



/' 

author, are admirably written, and 
1 hi Lttian iplrit, and 
are eminently practical in their aim. For the young dlscipl< 

; any DOOl D | than the lirM- 

named. > . valuable 

e laal volui 
i thoae who 

• - ;in<I d< liiiity, the 

htari 11... 

crate dl 



each . 

iriquo 



ll.fifl 

4.50 



J. E. TILTON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 



UIET THOUGHTS FOR QUIET HOURS. By the author 
of " Life's Evening," " Life's Morning," «tc. 



"A gentle influence like the dew distils from these pages: they are 
sweet to dwell upon, — now in verse, and now in prose; now a story, and 
then a sermon : they are well fitted to soothe, console, instruct, and 
strengthen." 

Price $1.50 



FADING FLOWERS. A Book of Consolation for those who have 
lost young Children On elegant tinted paper. By AIeta Lander, 
author of " Light on the Dark River." 

" Good taste and lavish expense have produced a volume which must 
find numerous purchasers. . . . The author has collected the more ex- 
quisite and touching poems in the language, designed to impart strength 
to hearts fainting under the passage of bitter sorrow and desolation 
from loss of children.'' — CongrcgationaUst. 

Price $2.50 

Turkey antique 4.50 



SONGS IN THE NIGHT; or, Hymns for the Sick and 
Suffering. By Rev. a. C. Thompson. 

Price $2.00 

Turkey antique 4.50 



J. E. TILTON £ CO.'s PUBLICATIONS. 



M 



OTHERS OF THE BIBLE. By Mrs. 5. G. Abhton. "With 
an Introduction by K« v. A. L. Stoxe, Park-street Church, Boston. 



"To all mothen thl i la an Invaluable production. It is written with a 

-i ruction, rc- 
noof, and warning, Bncfa moth ,, ■;. a nd Leah, Han- 

null, Bathsheba, Jezebel, fcc. it [a a simple, truthful treatise, founded 
strictly on the Bible."— FhOodelpkia Journal. 



Price 



$1.00 



QONG OF SOLOMON. By Lboxabd WmnwoTOH, DJ>. 

'Although form ■ t, and partly through 

nal articles In "The Biblioth< we have known the high 

Dr. Leonard Withington as a scholarly divine, we mi 
I surprise at the Impression which this work lias given n 

attainments and critical abll ere hardly aware I 

quiet banks of the Merrimack had lor fifty yens nurtured so genuine a 

Bch -l.ir."— .'. 

Price 11.75 



pROKEN LIGHTS. An Inquiry Into the Present Condition and 
D Future P : .-u. By Fbax« i a p 

Pker»s Works , authoress 
of " [ntuitive Morals, 11 

-, — 

" Th " dth i> purely traditional, and who are afraid of a free 

handling of n b to heed It; but all who 

•uth, and wh< deuce, will gaze with in- 

. 

Trice $1.73 



J. E. TILTON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 



ESCHATOLOGY; or, The Scripture Doctrine of the Com- 
ing of the Lord, the Judgment, and the Resurrection. 
By Samuel Lee. 

" This book, or the doctrines it contains, is claimed as the special belief 
of each denomination and class of Christians, — orthodox, liberal, and 
spiritual, — and is, therefore, a wonderful work." 

Price $1.75 



WELLS OF BACA ; or, Solaces of the Christian Mourner; 
and Other Thoughts on Bereavement. By the author of " The 
Morning and NJght Watches." 

Price 40 cents. 



T H 



E ROMAN QUESTION. Edmond About. 

Price $1.50 



%■<? 








<£ ^ 

& % 




* -CO 



9 













r ^ 



* .<$" 








/>'.- t ^/-^ 



# 

























v^.i...V'"'*\£ 




H^ 

r ^ 






ifr 




V ' * * * ° /■ -^ 



Ltf 









* ^ 
^ 






0° 



<: 






-0 










cv v 



-o< 



•^ 



-^s 









<d p> 




^ ^ 






^^ 



^ -^ \ c ^ 






^ 9, 



O^ y 









* V 






^ 

£ ^ 



c5> <^ 






